Easy Active Directory Migration From Windows Server 2012 to Windows Server 2022

We explain and demonstrate how to migrate Active Directory from Server 2012 to Server 2022, move the FSMO roles and upgrade the Domain and Forest Functional Levels.
There are 6 key steps to the process:
1: install Server 2022 and join it to the Domain
2: patch upgrade everything
3: add AD to the new Server 2022
4: Move FSMO's from the older Server 2012 to the new Server 2022
5: Update DNS in DHCP and Statics then Demote old server 2012
6: Upgrade the Domain and Forest Level
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[@jscooper22]

As an IT Manager with a background in programming, I freely admit to knowing enough about networking and Domain Controllers to be dangerous. I was dreading upgrading our 2012r2 server to 2022. Today, it went off almost without a hitch. Thanks for the clear, accurate, and comprehensive video! Oh, and the hitch? Just make sure you don't accidentally change your timezone and throw off the time by 3 hours. Oops.😬

[@Laffendo]

It was a little strange to see this comment, because it describes my own situation perfectly. I also have a background in programming and are now working as an IT-manager. I been thinking about upgrading my domain controller from 2012R2 for a long time. After seeing this video I dared to do the job, and it went smoothly. The most timeconsuming part was actually the part that was almost forgotten in the video - updating the DNS settings for all our DHCP-server, server, printers, etc. to point to the new server.

[@Raven1180]

This tutorial has come at the right time. Updating a small office of 12 users from 2012 essentials to 2022 essentials. Thank you so much for taking the time and showing the steps. Thumbs up and subscribed.

[@Ionutd00]

Thank you very much! this tutorial helped me to migrate my 2012 AD to 2019 AD in minutes. The video is precise and easy to follow. Congrats!

[@shanzig0007]

Very well done. Covered a couple of pieces I had overlooked in the past

[@ruru2134]

Did my first DC migration and it went well, thanks to this video!

[@saracen9347]

simple, clear, no bs, perfect

[@darkenpire6089]

Fast, efficient, straight to the goal. Félicitations

[@jeffg2024]

Extremely valuable and well done.

[@moepskie]

Straight to the point, cheers

[@keithhuddleston3082]

Great tutorial. This really helped me with migrating from 2012R2 to 2016 domain and forest. Thanks again.

[@olaseniaboaba2742]

Thanks for this short piece really helpful.

[@kittiesandcolas7957]

Thanks Bro!! This isn't something I do more than once every 2 years, I always fumble through through the errors.. this video is so handy, thanks again! 🤘🐱🌱🍄

[@vaclavfreml7249]

Maaaannn, thank you sooooo much, i just did this in small dental clinic, everything was just as you described

[@Helldonyt]

Very informative to anyone looking to upgrade!

[@smsgrappler]

Very nice! Great Job. Very Helpful.

[@trusttech9942]

Thanks so much. Doing this today!

[@larryclark7778]

I have a migration scheduled for tomorrow and am very happy to have found your video. Thank you for sharing your knowledge 🙂

[@isaacmutisya5009]

How did it go?

[@zkilla4611]

Great Video. Looking to do this some time this year. Just getting the 2022 licensing together for now

[@willyw1765]

this was so helpful!!! THANKS!!!

[@laurajacobs1000]

Again - many thanks. It was such a clear, comprehensive explanation that I just used it on a job. I feel like I should split my fee with you!

[@URTechDotCa]

Ha! So very glad I could help. I actually did this video to prove to a company that I knew what I was doing. They chose someone else, but it was a good experience all the same.

[@Drakken_]

@@URTechDotCa Well its their loss in the end. Or maybe the "would be your boss" got scared that you could replace him so he hired someone who didn't know that much.

[@ronald4life1]

@@URTechDotCa jesus that's a shame. Great video and extremely helpful and clear appreciate it!

[@laurajacobs1000]

Thank you for this! i have to do this over the holiday.

[@URTechDotCa]

Have fun! It's not that hard.

[@bamzilla1616]

excellent guide. thanks for sharing

[@MrSysadmin1975]

Here we are in 2023, once again migrating the same domain, that was created on 2003 Small Business Server (+SQL, + Exchange), virtualized and migrated to 2012 R2, and now migrating to Windows Server 2022 - completed introduction of 2022 DC and transferred roles. Everything still works after all these years, although I still find remnants of SBS2003 here and there :)

[@Captaindespacio]

Amazing! Thank you!1

[@KLNYC]

very straight forward

[@mpdesousa]

Brilliant stuff thanks mil

[@mpdesousa]

Hey mate, QQ. Do i remove DNS delegation first or do i update dns delegation first? Migrating primary DC that has DNS from Win2012 to Win2019, so wondering as you skipped it in the first step and did NOT update but later on you removed it off the old server. Need to move the zones , DNS namespaces etc.

[@Blacbeard31]

Thank you!!!

[@t0mcat33]

THANKS!

[@ilyaszhumashev8784]

By accident I was assigned an urgent task to move DC from a VM to a Windows host OS. With my limited AD knowledge, thanks to this video, I was able to get this done within half an hour. My honest gratitude to the author for concise, efficient instructions in this video.

[@mohdnubairiabdulmutalib1446]

Hi. Very helpful. Just a quick question. I have in old server AD Certificates Services. How do migrate this too? I believed we cannot have multiple AD with certificates services.

[@isaacmutisya5009]

Thanks for the video. No FRS to DFR migration?

[@garrymavin_imotek]

Nice.

[@michaelsanders9147]

Will be trying this tomorrow for a client. It would be nice if MS put out videos like this, or made a wizard for this rather than having people play Where's Waldo to find and move different roles...but that would make too much sense. Thanks for the helpful video.

[@URTechDotCa]

Agreed

[@michaelsanders9147]

@@URTechDotCa Of course when I tried this it wouldn't take because the current domain forest/domain level was either 2000 or 2003 and when I tried to raise it to 2008 R2 it failed.

[@craigmurray4746]

Part of the problem is that all this amazing tech is no longer sexy and doesn't get the attention it should. Ideally Microsoft would rewrite all their domain tools and unify most of it, but that's never going to happen now, so we are left with this breadcrumb situation sadly.

[@JayScottNJ]

Thanks again, very instructional. Very useful.

[@randymercado8466]

Thanks for this video. We are actually on the process of planning our migration for exactly the same versions of windows server and this one is an absulote rescue. One question though: does running a robocopy command to move all files from the old DC (2012) to the new DC (2022) should be done before promoting the new server to a DC or after? or it doesn't really matter? Thanks for the answer.

[@IamJeffrey]

I got a little problem about group policy, upon checking it copies to the new windows server 2022 but no setting has been moved. What extra step do I need to do? Thank you!

[@ThePatsev]

After demoting the DC I was not able to login. Logon services unavailable. Reboot did not help;.

[@njdiver95]

This is almost exactly my own situation that I'm working on. This video is wonderful! It's going to be my walkthrough through process, however I do have one questions. Rather than having to repoint every device/machine to a new DNS address, is it possible, once I demote the old one DC to swap the IP of the new box to the old one or am I asking for trouble trying to do that? Seems like it should be easy enough to do.

[@craigmurray4746]

Changing the IP address of the servers would work, but this is also why best practice is to assign all client IP's with DHCP so that you make the change in one place and within a period all clients automatically pick up the new DNS server without needing to manually reconfigure anything.

[@KamilSTI]

43 / 5 000 I love your expression! As you say Boom!

[@muttBunch]

Wait, do you no longer have to upgrade the schema anymore after 2012r2?

[@leoteodoro0]

do all the users/groups and gpos are migrated this way?

[@streborz]

If you follow this very well done video, be certain that SYSVOL is replicating before you demote your old DC. Fail to do and you may find no clients are able to authenticate or GPO's present on new DC. Check your "\Windows\SYSVOL\sysvol\DOMAIN NAME.WHATEVER" is the same as your old DC and test replication before demoting/decommissioning. Excellent guide non the less and very funny. DHCP "MORON"😄

[@marvinbelardo7027]

hello @streborz, this is my error currently, can you kindly help me ?

[@pankajshukla5492]

great tutorial but unable to raise domain function lever from win2012 r2 to server 2022. error 'To update the domain functional level, the Active Directory Domain Controllers in the domain must be running the appropriate version of windows'. kindly help

[@rfqtimeout9229]

Hi, thank you for the tutorial.. but i have a few question. If i am in a server 2008R2, i need to upgrade to 2012R2 then upgrade to Server 2022 right? Do we need to upgrade the schema first? No need for schema upgrade? Thanks again for the video.

[@craigmurray4746]

If you were talking about upgrading on the same hardware, then yes you'd have to jump to 2012R2 1st, then to 2022. You definitely do not need to update the schema before upgrading, one of the nice things about AD is how conservative you can be.

[@klingklong20]

I have Windows Server 2012 R2 Domain Controller and intend to upgrade to Windows Server 2022. Additionally, my Group Policy Management is currently hosted on the same Windows Server 2012 R2 machine. The question is, will Group Policy Management also transfer to Windows Server 2022 after the process?

[@turb0z]

Through this process the users in AD are moved over? That's the only thing I didn't see covered in the video. I'll be following this video to help me with an AD migration from 2012 to 2022!

[@craigmurray4746]

Yes. The new server got all the user accounts when it was made a domain controller. That's how AD works. The title of this video is ever so slightly technically misleading lol

[@turb0z]

@@craigmurray4746No worries! I followed this video when I did the migration and everything worked as expected! Thank you for this video and the clear explanation of how to do this!

[@xaviersuarezv]

Thanks!!! do you know if its possible to move shared folders with access permissions from one server to another inside a domain without losing their respective permissons

[@craigmurray4746]

Use the Server Storage Migration Service that comes in the free Windows Admin Center tool. Absolutely amazing how awesome that thing works

[@xaviersuarezv]

@@craigmurray4746 thanks ill give it a try next time, i had to rebuild all the user access after moving all the forlders haha

[@jabroni6199]

Thanks!

[@jasondeleon1827]

Anyone can help me with my problem? my problem is when i tried to open group policy management in 2019 it says the network name cannot be found.

[@VSLComputers]

Nice video... although I am running into the "FRS is depreciated" error.

[@BangunTriHaryadi]

Is this different VM?

[@rashantha]

Can you power down the old DC and rename the new DC with the same name as the old DC and assign it the same static IP. This way you don't have to worry about changing DNS information on the workstation.

[@Secuwity]

Can anyone answer this?

[@etpelle72]

After demoting the 2012 server removing it from the network, and shutting it down can i change the ip address of the new 2022 server to the ip address of the old server so i don't need to change all the dns settings for all the workstations and other servers?

[@Secuwity]

Can anyone answer this?

[@craigmurray4746]

Yes, but you really should be using DHCP for your clients. Makes this kind of a change seamless and stress free

[@munkiebee738]

do you have tutorial on AD migration from Server 2008 to Server 2022 ?

[@URTechDotCa]

Sorry, no but I expect is is the same process.

[@Finchwizard]

Can you then completely remove/turn off the old DC, and shift the IP address back so the new DC has the old IP?

[@rashantha]

Ah, I was thinking the same. not sure if it will work. If you tried let me know please.

[@shanzig0007]

Theoretically it would work, but you will need to update your hosts in DNS for everything to jive correctly.

[@Drakken_]

I think you CAN by adding the old ip address to the network adapter so you will then work on both ip's. Its more like a workaround right?

[@craigmurray4746]

​@Drakken_ Yeah it's a work around. Best practice is to have DHCP and get your changes made that way. Clients are meant to be far more flexible than servers after all

[@craigmurray4746]

​@Drakken_ Yeah it's a work around. Best practice is to have DHCP and get your changes made that way. Clients are meant to be far more flexible than servers after all

[@man005pak]

Will it also move or copy the group policies and the scripts as configured on the old Windows 2012 server AD?

[@LucidDreaming1984]

i would also like to know this

[@IamJeffrey]

How did it goes? Did it copy all the group policy and is policy working?

[@craigmurray4746]

Unless you configured Group Policy to use the concept of the central store, then no, it won't have copied the policies from one server to the other. Scripts may have copied depending on where they were stored. If it was in the SYSVOL share it would be copied to the new server yes.

[@chriskirby4465]

I noticed you stopped at 2016 when bringing up the domain and forest levels... How come it has not changed for 2022? - Did you miss the step or?

[@Secuwity]

2016 is the latest the forest has been updated to.

[@janmatousek8272]

You have to wait for Windows Server 2025

[@Leigh20007]

Will this method also migrate AD users and groups?

[@craigmurray4746]

Yes, since it's not technically a migration in the true sense of the word.

[@abdellahappel]

Hello, in my company we have Domain in windows server 2003 is it possible to do this tutorial?? Thank you very much in advance

[@craigmurray4746]

Not directly. You need to first use 2012R2 as a temporary measure cause some tech changed over the years so you can't have 2022 as a domain controller in a 2003 domain.

[@BangunTriHaryadi]

Can we export GPO winser 2012 to 2022?

[@LucidDreaming1984]

ditto