DISCLAIMER: This guide is supplied as a guideline only. There is absolutely not guarantee that even if you follow these guidelines to the letter that it will work for you. I take no responsibility for any damages or lost time or data caused by following these steps. This is strictly for reference and you should make sure that you understand exactly what you are doing and why you are doing it. Results may vary.
Comprehensive steps for a clean install of SBS4.5 using the SBS4.5 upgrade disks.
What you need:
* SBS4.5 upgrade CDs
* SBS4.0 CDs
* SBS4.0/4.5 license pack(s)
* Backup media
1. Go through your entire system and write down all of the configurations for every program you are using; screen shots work great for this since you won’t make any transcription errors; include Exchange/IMS, Proxy, DUN, Windows networking and basic settings; modems; etc., etc. Basically, you want to make sure that you have a written record of all of the settings that you will need to redo once you re-install. This is especially important if you were not the person who did the initial installation. There are details such as ISP phone numbers and modem settings and time-out settings and such things that people tend to forget and then are not able to get their system fully functional again.
2. Make a full backup of your entire system.
3. Make another one (you can’t be too safe).
4. Using Outlook, make a PST file of ALL your public and private folders.
* create a new Personal Folder on a client machine
* copy all folders you want to keep to the Personal Folder
* make a backup of this PST
1. Export your user accounts using the Migrate Users Wizard; insert the SBS4.5 CD and click on Migrate Users on the Autorun screen. This will generate a file that you can save onto removable media (or another drive) that you can use to automatically recreate all your users on the new system.
2. If you are using SQL server you need to back up that data somehow. We are wanting to do a clean install of SBS4.5 here so we don’t want to install SQL6.5 and SQL7.0… unless you make very extensive use of SQLServer apps and don’t want to upgrade that right away (that’s a job in itself). If, however, you are just using SQL as a data repository and use front-end apps then this is what I did.
* Install SQL Server 7 on a client machine (remember SQL7 can install fully functional on Win9x machines, although I’d recommend a WinNT workstation or another server; this requires that you have a stand-alone version of SQLServer 7; you can obtain a free 120-day trial version from Microsoft). Give it a different name than you are using on your SBS machine.
* Run the SQLServer Upgrade Wizard to port over all of your SQLServer 6.5 data on the SBS Server to your stand alone SQLServer 7 machine.
* *IMPORTANT* Make sure that you check all of your data to ensure that everything is okay. Make sure you have all of your database objects; make sure triggers and scripts are also transferred; make sure your apps work with this data as well. The wizard is NOT perfect and you may have to transfer some objects manually. If you have access to a stand-alone SQLServer 6.5, it would be even better to install that on a stand-alone server and just replicate the database over.
1. Make a backup of all the *data* that you which to carry over. This includes the contents of your Users Shared Folders and Company folders and any data you may have. If you keep your data on a separate drive/partition and you won’t be formatting that drive then you may not need to do this… but it’s always a good idea.
2. Make sure that you have all of the device names and drivers, especially for your SCSI adapters and Drives (HDD, CD).
3. Create SBS setup diskettes. Run winnt32 /ox from the SBS4.0 CD (the SBS4.0a upgrade and SBS4.5 upgrade CDs do not include NT). You also need to copy the winnt.sif file from the /i386 folder on the CD to the second diskette. If you are creating the boot diskettes from a non-NT machine, you can use winnt instead of winnt32.
4. At this point there are a few ways to proceed. Basically you are now ready to clear your system partition. If your old system was mirrored, you can simply break the mirror then remove the partition(s) on the second drive. At this point, it’s a good idea to physically disconnect the first drive from the set (as a fall back position, it’s bootable and contains everything you had to start with).
5. Reboot your system with the SBS setup diskettes. At this point, this is your stand SBS4.0 (*NOT 4.5*) install process. When asked which partition to install onto, first delete your old partition and then pick the now
unassigned partition and convert it to NTFS.
6. Make sure that you answer all questions with the answers you want for your final system; this includes Domain, Computer, and owner names etc. This *is* going to be your final system and you won’t be able to (easily) change these.
Once SBS4.0 setup itself starts, pick the minimal set of components you want to install. Specifically do NOT install Exchange and SQL Server, but essentially, you want to unselect everything you can to speed up this part of the process.
7. Once SBS4.0 setup has completed, you should get the SBS4.0 console with the To Do list. If all is well, you are almost ready to proceed.
9. *Important* If you have any SBS4.0 license packs, *ADD THEM NOW*; Adding the SBS4.0 licenses to a 4.5 system may render the diskettes unusable (replacements are available from MS) and may not even work. Run all of your SBS4.0 client bump packs.
10. If everything looks good, you are now ready to upgrade to SBS4.5; Put in the 4.5 CD and follow the prompts. This is pretty well your standard steps so I won’t go through them here.
11. Once SBS4.5 has done installing you should now get the SBS4.5 console/to do list. If all worked well, you should have a nice stable and clean system. Of course, you have no users and no data, etc.
12. If you have any SBS4.5 license packs, you can add them now.
13. Now we come to the data recovery steps.
14. First recreate all of the user and computer accounts (using the console!). This is also a good time to create the Client setup disks and upgrading the client computers. If you used the Migrate Users Wizard to create the user file at the start, you can now re-run the wizard via the To Do List and import your user accounts.
15. Using Outlook, load up the PST file created at the start of the procedure and copy the public folders over to the exchange public folders section. For each user, you will also want to recreate their folders and/or copy the contents for those folders that exist by default.
16. If using SQL server, at some point you’ll want to port the data over to the SQLServer7 on the SBS machine. Depending on how you did the steps above this could be using the Upgrade Wizard (6.5->7.0) or just simply
replicating/copying from 7->7; again, make sure that your data is intact and fully functional.
17. That’s pretty well it; all you need to do now is restore any data that you need and restore the contents of the Users Shared Folders.
18. Lastly, you will now need to reconfigure everything the way you want it; Add printers, configure dial-up networking, configure Exchange & the Internet Mail Service, as well as any other apps that you need to customize.
Notes:
A. If you are taking the opportunity of adding/upgrading your HDD subsystem while you are upgrading SBS, then you have a great backup called the old hard drive. Simply plug in your new drive(s) and remove the old drive(s). If anything should go wrong, you could just swap drives again and you’re set! This works the same if you have a mirrored system. You can break the mirror and disconnect the first drive.
B. If you are using SQL Server a lot, it might be better to install SQLServer 6.5 during the initial SBS4.0 installation; restore all of your SQL databases and make sure they work and THEN upgrade to SBS4.5. This will install SQLServer 7 in parallel to SQLServer 6.5. (Not really, they will both be installed but only one can be used at a time; see the documentation for this; at least it allows you to keep using 6.5 while you concentrate on making the rest of the system stable; database upgrades are a bit more demanding).
C. A few notes about the bump packs:
* The SBS4.5 upgrade process recognizes any licenses already installed in the original 4.0 server; you can thus apply any 4.0 bump packs prior to upgrading;
* Previously unused 4.0 bump packs can be applied to a 4.5 server;
* A used 4.0 bump pack should *NOT* be applied to a 4.5 server; this often fails and can render the disk useless; contact MS support for a replacement;
* In 4.0, you need to apply all bump packs in the correct sequence if you ever need to re-install the server from scratch; In 4.5, all you need to do is apply the last bump pack that you have and all licenses will be applied;
* Bump packs are signed with information about the specific server it was applied to. If you ever need to run the bump pack on a new server (server upgrade), you need to contact Microsoft support to obtain a password; same is true if you replace the NIC in your server and subsequently need to re-install SBS and the bump packs.
Well, I hope that I have covered everything. Once again, this guide, please don’t treat it as gospel and certainly don’t use it as your only source of information for your ‘clean’ upgrade. This is just for reference and I make no guarantees.
And lastly… Good luck. 🙂
I was recommended this website by my cousin. I’m not sure whether this post is
written by him as nobody else know such detailed about my problem.
You’re incredible! Thanks!
It happens to be a terrific and also handy part of facts.. convert reel to reel to digital I’m just happy that you simply shared this beneficial information and facts along with us. Please continue to be united states updated in this way. Appreciate your expressing.