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Experience Upgrading Win Server 2003?

ELMI0001

ELMI0001

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jan 5, 2009
375
10
Olympic Hills GC
Does anyone have any experience upgrading a Win Server from WinServer 2003 to something newer? Or, can anyone point me in the right direction to learn more about upgrading the software.

I know this is pretty broad but I don't know much about this and we found out today some software we rely on is dropping support for 2003.

Thanks in advance.

(I come here because I trust and respect the users on this site, I don't know of a Windows counterpart site that I could submit a question to and get good feedback)
 
M

monkeybagel

macrumors 65816
Jul 24, 2011
1,141
61
United States
ELMI0001 said:
Does anyone have any experience upgrading a Win Server from WinServer 2003 to something newer? Or, can anyone point me in the right direction to learn more about upgrading the software.

I know this is pretty broad but I don't know much about this and we found out today some software we rely on is dropping support for 2003.

Thanks in advance.

(I come here because I trust and respect the users on this site, I don't know of a Windows counterpart site that I could submit a question to and get good feedback)
Click to expand...

The only upgrade path you would have would be to Windows Server 2008, which is the Vista-era vesion of Windows Server. Later, Windows Server 2008 R2 was released (the Windows 7-version) and it dropped support for x86. So you could do an in-place upgrade to Windows Server 2008 x86, however it sounds like a migration may be in your near future as if they are dropping support for Windows Server 2003, I would think they probably would not support Windows Server 2008 long or at all as it is it didn't have a large deployment base because the R2 version was a more finely-tuned version.

And regards to an upgrade, you can do an in-place upgrade, but the OSs are quite a bit different, so don't expect it to go smoothly, and be happily surprised if it does.

To be clear - Windows Server 2008 was available in both x86 and x64 versions, and Windows Server 2008 R2 dropped x86 and is ONLY x64. You can not upgrade an x86 OS, which is probably the version of Windows Server 2003 you are running, to a 64-bit version of anything. It will have to be a migration.
 
ELMI0001

ELMI0001

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jan 5, 2009
375
10
Olympic Hills GC
monkeybagel said:
The only upgrade path you would have would be to Windows Server 2008, which is the Vista-era vesion of Windows Server. Later, Windows Server 2008 R2 was released (the Windows 7-version) and it dropped support for x86. So you could do an in-place upgrade to Windows Server 2008 x86, however it sounds like a migration may be in your near future as if they are dropping support for Windows Server 2003, I would think they probably would not support Windows Server 2008 long or at all as it is it didn't have a large deployment base because the R2 version was a more finely-tuned version.

And regards to an upgrade, you can do an in-place upgrade, but the OSs are quite a bit different, so don't expect it to go smoothly, and be happily surprised if it does.

To be clear - Windows Server 2008 was available in both x86 and x64 versions, and Windows Server 2008 R2 dropped x86 and is ONLY x64. You can not upgrade an x86 OS, which is probably the version of Windows Server 2003 you are running, to a 64-bit version of anything. It will have to be a migration.
Click to expand...

I think we'll call in some professionals to handle the upgrade for us. The software we use is dropping support for Vista, SQL Server 2005, 2003 Server. Microsoft dropped support for the products in 2012,2011,2010 respectively. MS states support for Server 2008 will drop in 2015. That would buy us enough time to figure out what we're trying to get done here; move away from a server completely.

This is the last piece to get us off the server we currently use but we need the software to function.

Thanks!
 
M

monkeybagel

macrumors 65816
Jul 24, 2011
1,141
61
United States
ELMI0001 said:
I think we'll call in some professionals to handle the upgrade for us. The software we use is dropping support for Vista, SQL Server 2005, 2003 Server. Microsoft dropped support for the products in 2012,2011,2010 respectively. MS states support for Server 2008 will drop in 2015. That would buy us enough time to figure out what we're trying to get done here; move away from a server completely.

This is the last piece to get us off the server we currently use but we need the software to function.

Thanks!
Click to expand...

That's what I would recommend doing. Actually, all of those products should be in the extended support phase which means they will continue to get security updates.

http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/default.aspx?LN=en-us&p1=3198&x=12&y=16

Windows Server 2008 should be in the extended support phase until 2020.

http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/?p1=12925

Depending on the application, and if it is running on old hardware, a possible solution would be to P2V the current server running Windows Server 2003 onto a new server running VMware ESX Server, and that would put it on new, reliable hardware.

Many vendors are "forcing" customers to move to a hosted solution so they can generate more income. If that is the case, I would see what other vendors are available.
 
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