Upgrading WINS and DHCP Servers

If your hardware is compatible with Windows Server 2003 and will continue to support the performance you require from your WINS servers, your DHCP servers, or both, you might want to upgrade these servers in place instead of migrating these services to new servers.

Both WINS and DHCP are designed to automatically upgrade their databases when you upgrade from Windows NT 4.0 to Windows Server 2003, so there are no additional steps to take in upgrading these services once you have upgraded the operating system. However, if you have also upgraded to Active Directory, you must authorize your Windows Server 2003-based DHCP servers in Active Directory before they will continue to lease IP addresses. For more information about authorizing DHCP servers in Active Directory, see Authorizing DHCP Servers in Active Directory later in this chapter.

Upgrading can take more than 30 minutes each, depending on the number of services and the size of the databases being upgraded. Because status is not reported during the upgrade, a lengthy upgrade might appear to have failed. Therefore, be sure to allow a sufficient amount of time before attempting to restart a service after an upgrade, particularly if you are upgrading a large database, or if you are upgrading multiple services.

Note  

If your existing WINS services, DHCP services, or both are on a primary domain controller (PDC) or backup domain controller (BDC) that is upgraded in place, the WINS and DHCP databases are automatically upgraded along when the operating system is upgraded. This might cause the upgrade of the domain controller to take additional time.

After the server operating system is upgraded to Windows Server 2003, you should test the WINS and DHCP services to ensure performance continues at appropriate levels. If performance is not satisfactory, you can migrate the services to a different computer.

To move the WINS service from one Windows Server 2003 “based computer to another Windows Server 2003 “based computer, follow the procedure in Migrating the WINS Service later in this chapter.

To move the DHCP service from one Windows Server 2003 “based computer to a different Windows Server 2003 “based computer, follow the export procedure in this section and then follow the import procedure in Importing DHCP Settings later in this chapter.

To export the DHCP database from Windows Server 2003

1. At the command prompt, type:

    netsh DHCP server export  path  all 

   This will export the file to the path you specify. This can take more than 30 minutes to complete, depending on the size of the database, and gives you no indication of progress while exporting the file. Do not assume that the process has failed until you allow sufficient time, which might be longer than 30 minutes, depending on the size of your database. When the export is complete, a message appears that tells you the command has completed successfully.

2. Copy the exported file to a location where you can access it from the new Windows Server 2003 “based server.

For more information about the Netsh command-line tool, see Netsh in Help and Support Center for Windows Server 2003.