I'm about to use a term that some network administrators consider offensive.
Now I'm not one to commonly use vulgar expressions in the workplace but I feel that this one needs to
be discussed.
The term is in place upgrade every version of Windows workstation and Windows Server has come with a
list of operating systems that you can upgrade from.
Meaning if you're running a listed operating system you can install in a way that keeps all of the existing
configurations drivers and applications.
But changes to a newer version of Windows for the most part.
That list is the two previous versions of Windows Server but doing this kind of upgrade comes with some
obstacles.
There is never a guarantee that the hardware and drivers supported by a previous operating system will
be supported by a newer more demanding version second over a period of time.
Most computers inherit clutter from different applications user preferences updated drivers and so on.
If all the settings are kept through an upgrade that means the clutter stays as well.
A third challenge is that not all rules and features can survive an upgrade because they're just too
different from one version of the next to survive a simple transfer of settings and there are other
obstacles.
But consider this your starter list given these insurmountable obstacles you may ask why someone would
ever want to upgrade a server in the first place.
Well when Microsoft first announced a semi-annual release channel for Windows Server it became clear
to me that an in-place upgrade option was going to need to become a reality at some point these additions
of Windows Server are designed to come out every six months and have a lifecycle of only about a year
and a half.
New features are being released at breakneck speeds and servers are going to need to be upgraded almost
as fast as these new releases are coming out it stands to reason then that if Microsoft is going to
work out the capability of in-place upgrades for the semi-annual release that that same capability is
going to be transferable to the long term service releases the Windows Server 2019 and beyond for that
and I'm sure other reasons in place upgrade is being touted as one of the noteworthy new features in
Windows Server 2019.
So I decided to give it a try I've mentioned a fairly robust role before a DFS.
This is a Windows 2016 data center server and it's a member of an Active Directory Domain that is hosted
by also Windows Server 2016 and this machine is installed with the role 80 DFS.
All of those features are there.
There are configurations to do federated identity across domain lines.
Let me show you what happens when we've inserted the Windows Server 2019 DVD and go ahead and run setup.
Now this startup screen may look familiar if you've upgraded desktop operating systems before.
I'm going to go ahead and say yes.
Download updates because I know it's not really going to take all that long just to do the check and
I'm being asked to enter my product key.
So let me go ahead and put that in and it will take a couple of screens where it asks me which version
I want to install.
Let's continue with at least the same resources that we have to begin with and after checking with whether
or not I accept the license terms it asks me what I want to keep.
Well if we're testing out in-place upgrades I'm going to tell it that I want to keep everything and
move on to the next screen so you can see this takes a couple of screens before it gets to any warnings.
But take a look at what we're being told right away.
This tells us that the Active Directory Federation service role is installed on this machine and it
goes on to tell us that this isn't going to work.
That that role is not going to be here when we finish the upgrade it will need to be configured differently
later on down the line.
Microsoft has no expectations that everyone is going to want to perform in-place upgrades and they have
these reminders in place for those that try to do it on servers where it's a bad idea.
Now I'm not going on record as saying that in-place upgrades don't work.
I have successfully run this upgrade process on file servers a DHS IP server and even on a radius server
and they all worked out fine but there are rules that shouldn't be upgraded.
We've talked a little bit about how these processes may vary.
We've discussed a DFS and briefly reviewed Active Directory Domain Services.
We've briefly discussed Active Directory Domain Services so you should already be on board with the
idea that these types of upgrades have a little more involved.
Now in addition to performing in-place upgrades where they will work and doing the role specific migration
processes there's another option available to us in migrating a role the server migration tools often
abbreviated to Smick will allow you to create a special tool on your new 2019 19 server that you can
take to an older machine by 2016 or a 2012 R2 server and export or pack up the configuration of say
a DHS CPS server or some other role or feature that is running and has been for some time on an existing
server you can then take that wrapped up export BRING IT OVER TO YOUR 2019 server and import the smug
feature that allows you to port an entire configuration from an old box that needs to be retired to
a new server Cemig tools are something that you're probably going to want to become more familiar with
especially if you have a Windows Server 2012 or 2016 network that you would like to migrate to new installations
of Windows Server 2019 these tools are usually preferred over in place upgrades and are explored in
greater detail in courses on installing and configuring Windows servers.