Upgrading Windows 2003 Server SP2 to R2

Trawling the Internet trying to find information on how to upgrade from Windows 2003 Server SP2 to R2 is a heavily time consuming task made even worse when the process of upgrading is already quite complicated. There seems to be very little clear information on how to go about things and the information that is there is not as straightforward as it should be.

My scenario is that I have a number of Windows 2003 Server machines, Some SP1, some SP2, some R2 and a mix of Standard and Enterprise and some are using virtualisation. My plan would be to make them all R2 level so they are consistent. Should be easy? It is once you know how.

There are a whole load of caveats but fundamentally you simply need disk 2 from a matching R2 release and install that over Windows 2003 SP2. But now the dreaded caveats, these can pretty much be found on the Microsoft Support Site here.

  • http://projectdream.org Lukas Beeler

    You know, there is no need to upgrade the machines to R2 unless you need one of the special features.

  • http://www.jasonslater.co.uk jasonslater

    Good point Lukas, that’s very true. The one thing I have been keen to get hold of is the new printer configuration facilities in R2 for the print server. Thought, this can be integrated via GPO, it also requires a schema update (to v31) on the AD machines.
    Jas.

  • Greg

    This article poses the scenario of finding and providing information on upgrading to R2 from a Windows 2003 server with SP2 but nowhere does it actually give us this information (nor does the MS article that is linked).

  • http://www.jasonslater.co.uk jasonslater

    Greg, In my case all I did was get hold of the R2 release disk 2 .ISO image from Technet then I installed it over the top of Windows Server 2003 (I had to mount the .ISO file using ISOBuster).

  • Justin

    My scenario is as follows:

    2003 SP2 Machine.
    If I have downloaded the R2 Disc 1 and 2 (With Service Pack 2 from MS Licensing Site)…will this install on top of an SP2 machine with no issues?

    What will happen to any Post SP2 patches that have been applied?

  • http://www.jasonslater.co.uk jasonslater

    Justin, there is a whole bunch of stuff you need to be aware of at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/912309

  • Jonathan

    Did you directly upgrade your SP2 Domain Controllers? — Microsoft mentions on the article that you should probably remove Active Directory before the upgrade?

    I’ve already run adprep on the DC I want to upgrade to R2 (Because I’ve got another R2 DC in the domain). Can I just use disk 2 for the same version I have?

    Thanks.

    • http://www.jasonslater.co.uk jasonslater

      Hi Jonathan, I seem to remember, at the time, we had to upgrade our backup domain controller in this way but we ended up rebuilding that into a virtual machine shortly after.

  • Jonathan

    I found a useful link. I think I can just upgrade with the Disk 2 from R2.

    Check this out:

    http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc756124.aspx

  • bob

    The link proposed by jonathan is perfect. I just tried this method, and it has worked perfectly.
    As the link say, SP2 is necessary to upgrade to R2.

    Thanks!