Upgrade Windows 2000 SP4 to Windows 2008 SP2 - Step by step with screenshots

Upgrade Windows 2000 SP4 to Windows 2008 SP2 - Step by step with screenshots

Options to convert Windows 2000 SP4 to Windows 2003 SP2

1. You can use Acronis backup & recovery to create a bootable cd and create an image from you operating system by booting from the cd. After that you can use acronis backup and recovery to convert the image file to a vhd file. note, acronis is not a free tool, but it works really great on windows 2000 and newer you can create images even if the server is running.

2. Platespin PowerConvert – A commercial product that has the broadest operating system support. Supported source operating systems include Windows NT, 2000, XP, 2003 and Red Hat and SUSE. Virtual platform support includes VMware Server/Workstation/ESX, Microsoft Virtual Server, XenSource and Virtual Iron. The Acronis True Image, Symantec Ghost and Live state image formats are supported as well. Platespin’s product also converts virtual machines to physical machines.

3. Ultimate P2V – A cheaper alternative with some freeware tools such as BartPE, but this product requires an imaging tool such as Symantec Ghost to perform the imaging. It also requires some work to build the boot CD and can be a bit complicated.

4. Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 Migration Toolkit – Only supports Windows NT, 2000 and 2003 source operating systems and only supports Microsoft’s virtual machine as a target format. Free but requires the Automated Deployment Services add-on to Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition. The conversion process is somewhat complicated and may not be a good choice for most users.

5. Leostream P>V Direct – I thought I would mention this tool even though Leostream recently dropped this product to focus on other areas. Supports conversion of Windows NT, 2000, XP and 2003 source servers to VMware Server/Workstation/ESX, Microsoft VirtualServer and Xen target servers.

6. Microsoft VMM. It may require offline to convert windows 2000 SP4. you may need to install Update Roll 1 on windows 2000.

7. NTBACKUP could be another option. Please refer to this link: Restore windows server using nybackup on a test vm

8. Robocopy - A free tool from Microsoft that is included in the Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit. Simply create a new virtual machine and copy the data from the physical server to the virtual server. Robocopy preserves all the date/time stamps and security when copying data from server to server. This is useful for migrating non-application, file servers where you only care about the data files on the server. Sysprep - A Microsoft tool to prepare an existing server for cloning and restoration from a disk image. NewSID - A Sysinternals utility to change a Windows server’s SID (security identifier) after a server has been cloned.

9. Imaging tools like Symantec Ghost and Acronis True Image create images of your physical servers. Once completed, you can create a new VM and restore the image to the virtual machine. VMTS.nethas a good write-up on the procedure here .

9. VMware converter. Please refer to this page: Converting Windows 2000 to a VM using VMware Converter

You can always do a P2V by backing up a physical server using your traditional backup software, creating a new virtual machine, installing the same operating system on the VM and a backup agent, and then performing a restore from the backup taken of the physical server. Not the cleanest method for doing a P2V but can be used as a cheap alternative to other tools.

But for certain servers, it is less risky and just as easy to build a new server and migrate the data to it. Examples of this include SQL Servers and Domain Controllers. It’s a simple process to build a new virtual machine, install the operating system, dcpromo it and then shutdown your physical domain controllers. Likewise, building a new virtual SQL server then detaching the databases from a physical SQL server and attaching them to the virtual one is an easy process and reduces the risk of data corruption that can occur during the P2V cloning process.

B. Troubleshooting Problems

Can't convert Windows 2000 to a VM
Can't convert windows 2000 P2V with 80040154
Can't start Windows
Failed to add a host to VMM with error 2927
How to get boot menu on Hyper-V VMs
How to implement the recovery console in Windows 2000
How to transfer a file to a Hyper-V VM without network
Hyper-v Guest VM Black Screen
P2v using VMM 2008 R2 gets this warning: 13210 and 13222

Problem to convert Windows 2000 VM to Windows 2003
Restore Windows 2000 System Directory Services Restore
Script of adding list server in Microsoft VMM
Script of VMM P2V
Transfer the SP4 executive file from host to the VM

VMM: ID: 3128 Unknown error 0x80041001

VMM error: ID 3128 Details (Unknown error 0x80041001)

VMM Error (2921)

C. How do we upgrade our Windows Server 2000 with SP4 (FTP server) to Windows 2008 SP2 (FTP Server) without re-cretae users, permissions and FTOP configuration.

1. We have tried Microsoft VMM, Platespin Migrate. All of them failed with blue stop.

2. Install Windows 2000 with SP4 as a VM on Windows 2008 R2 hyper-v. Use NTBackup to restore the production server running Windows 2000 SP4 to the new Windows 2000. Make sure all data, users, permissions and FTP configuration are restored.

3. Now, we can convert the new Windows 2000 VM to a Windows 2003 R2.

4. However, we get the blue stop again when we upgrade the Windows 2003 R2 VM to Windows 2008.

5,.What we do is 1) install Windows 2000 with SP4 as a new physical machine. 2) Use NTBackup to restore every thing from the production server to the new physical server. 3) Upgrade the new physical server running 2000 with SP4 to Windows 2003 R2. 4) Install SP2 on the Windows 2003 R2.

6. Now, convert the new Windows 2003 R2 with SP2 to Windows 2008 as VM and then install SP2 on it. Reset share and test.

It works! The users can login and access FTP server!

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