Win7 on 2003 domain

[Guardsmon]

Hi, I know there have been threads about this in the past, I've had a quick look over and thought I'd start my own rather than hijacking.

I've only worked on 2003/xp domains, but we are now looking to move our clients to Win7, however my manager doesn't want to move any servers to 2008 just yet.
All of our servers are 2003 (not R2) with the exception of an Apps and Web server.

We are a school and only a small number of users across our network have full roaming profiles as this is not needed for the pupils and teachers.

With the exception of loss of functions from a 2008 domain, is it likely we will have any problems?
How would microsoft licensing work for registering the win7 clients within a 2003 domain?

Any help would be great,
Thanks

Guy

 

[iaind]

Nope, works fine!

 

[a1ex2001]

Will be fine with no issues what so ever, you manager is spot on too unless there is a compelling business reason to upgrade you should save your pennies. Windows 7 is compelling Server 2008 in general is not.

 

[Guardsmon]

Thanks, so how do we manage the Win7 licensing needing to register with a license server?

 

[brainchylde]

I believe Microsoft released a fix for KMS host on Server 2003. It won't work natively - you will need the fix as far as I know. We manage licensing (1500 machines) using KMS - but on Server 08. You could have course use a MAK key for each machine, but that'll be more effort than it's worth - just set up the KMS host, register your Windows 7 key and your clients will automatically activate.

Out of interst - how many servers do you have in a school? I can't understand why your manager would not want to use it - your volume licensing costs in education bring the costs to a pitiful amount - get it out of the way - it's a mature product now.

 

[Guardsmon]

Out of interst - how many servers do you have in a school? I can't understand why your manager would not want to use it - your volume licensing costs in education bring the costs to a pitiful amount - get it out of the way - it's a mature product now.

Are you refering to using a licensing server? I was under the impression that it is needed for win7/vista unless as you say a MAK key was used?
My boss has no idea about 2008 or win7 and he has asked me to look into it (I'm not up to date myself as you can tell). We have 13 servers and 250 clients.

 

[m4cc45]

Don't worry about KMS as you probably won't need it unless you have several hundred clients. I use Windows 7 on a Windows 2000 domain (don't ask) which works fine - again it's more that the advanced Group Policies that you can get with 2008 obviously aren't incorporated in 2000/2003 domains.

Go for it IMHO.



M.

 

[brainchylde]

Are you refering to using a licensing server? I was under the impression that it is needed for win7/vista unless as you say a MAK key was used?
My boss has no idea about 2008 or win7 and he has asked me to look into it (I'm not up to date myself as you can tell). We have 13 servers and 250 clients.

Yes - essentially, with a KMS key (and I'm not sure why you wouldn't use one - it is v.simple to set up) you deploy your clients without any product key in the installation - a record is created in DNS so the clients know where to contact the KMS server. They then activate against this. However, in order to use Windows 7 KMS keys on a Windows 2003 server you will require a Hotfix. You could use a MAK key but it just involves some extra work for you (depending on how you are imaging etc). In addition, you will probably find future Microsoft products use the KMS model - so it will be beneficial in the long run.


If I were you, I would migrate your domain controllers (1 or 2 I assume?) to 2008 and implement the KMS functionality on one of those. It isn't that difficult (perhaps a days work - I assume in a school you could find the downtime). You will then have the benefit (although some will dispute the word 'benefit') of the new Group Policies.

This is what we did (Also educational although we are spread over 5 sites, 1500 clients and 9000 students) and it's worked great for us.

Any questions, I'll be more than happy to answer them if you wish.

 

[Guardsmon]

thank you very much.

 

[s0ck]

Will be fine with no issues what so ever, you manager is spot on too unless there is a compelling business reason to upgrade you should save your pennies. Windows 7 is compelling Server 2008 in general is not.

Playing devils advocate for a second, what's the compelling business case for upgrading from XP to 7?

Will be fine with no issues what so ever

It might be worth checking the basic things like printers/scanner drivers all work fine with 7. All basic things people assume will work. I imagine you'll be doing a pilot beforehand anyway, though.

 

[Trojan]

It might be worth checking the basic things like printers/scanner drivers all work fine with 7. All basic things people assume will work. I imagine you'll be doing a pilot beforehand anyway, though.

Application compatibility too.

 

[mrbios]

Do you use mandatory profiles? if so you'll need to create a new ntuser.man via a windows 7 machine and name the folder the same but with .v2 at the end in the same location as the current mandatory profile

You will also need to edit group policy via a windows 7 machine with RSAT else you won't get the windows 7 policies

Take a look around www.edugeek.net forums, theres a lot of people there with the same situations and they are in school environments

 

[Skidilliplop]

Just a general note about Windows 7 in legacy domains... One rather annoying bug I found is in order to maintain backward compatibility with NT5 based systems the Windows 7 roaming profile is created in a subfolder of the main user.name folder called ".V2".
This (god knows why) causes issues if your profile paths configured on the accounts don't have a trailing oblique. E.G \\server\profile$\user.name generates an error when logging in about not being able to locate/create the roaming profile, however \\server\profile$\user.name\ Works perfectly.
The difference a \ makes!
It's the simplest thing to script and fix, but had me scratching my head for a good hour wondering why roaming wasn't working when all the paths and permissions appeared to be fine.

Also yet another bizarre one to be aware of is when first logging on and creating the .V2 profile it sets permissions on that folder that only the associated user has access, no even domain admins have acess to it. Which is somewhat annoying as you have to then take ownership of it and change the permissions. Though again this can probably be scripted quite simply but if not addressed at the outset will cause grief later.

 

[JessicaD]

Guardsmon,

What type of licensing are you considering? To learn more about Microsoft licensing, please see the following link: http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/existing-customers/product-activation.aspx

Jessica
Microsoft Windows Client Team