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I'm looking to perform a migration of an existing 2008 R2 Active Directory forest to a new(ish) 2012 forest, and bumped into the issue that there don't seem to be any compatible tools to do so. The latest version of ADMT (v3.2) isn't supported in a 2012 FL environment, and failed to actually do anything once I got it installed in the 2008 R2 domain and tried to migrate a test user.

Looking online, I found a not-exactly-helpful Technet article saying that ADMT 3.2 doesn't support 2012, and my workaround is to install a 2008 R2 domain controller, demote the domain, migrate and then decommission the 2008 R2 domain controller and elevate domain back to 2012, which is pretty %@!#ing ridiculous.

Given that, has anyone performed a migration to a 2012 FL domain/forest and/or have any non-ridiculous suggestions on how to go about it?

Worst-case, I figure I can punch something up in PowerShell, but given that it's 2014, I'm finding the lack of support for 2012 a little confusing and am holding out hope that I'm just missing something here.

HopelessN00b
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    Hey Hopeless, good to see you again. I know you already know, but for others, I'm linking the KB article that describes your issue: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2753560 – TheCleaner Jan 02 '14 at 18:38

1 Answers1

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Microsoft has published a blog post somewhere that I can't find at the moment stating that a new version of ADMT will be released in Q1 of 2014 that will support installation on, and migration to/from, any currently supported version of Windows Server. So, you have three options:

  1. Shell out cash for Quest tools which don't have this restriction

  2. Install a 2008 R2 DC in your 2012 environment. Lowering the DFL/FFL isn't terribly difficult and the only features you really lose are Kerberos armoring and CAP for file services. Note that you'll also need a 2008 R2 member server in the target domain to install ADMT on, unless you install it on a DC which generally isn't recommended.

  3. Sit tight and wait for the next version of ADMT to drop.

MDMarra
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    Here's the link to the [blog post.](https://blogs.technet.com/b/askds/archive/2013/12/13/an-update-for-admt-and-a-few-other-things-too.aspx) – colealtdelete Jan 02 '14 at 18:34
  • Thanks. That got me to the blog article that implies the new version of ADMT will work with 2012. – HopelessN00b Jan 02 '14 at 19:04
  • Re: #2 - Hope you haven't enabled any optional features, e.g. AD Recycle Bin. – Ryan Ries Jan 02 '14 at 21:04
  • @RyanRies the AD Recycle bin works at a 2008 R2 level, and shouldn't be effected by downgrading the DFL to 2008 R2, though. – MDMarra Jan 02 '14 at 21:14