Hi All,
In the past, MS recommended you run the "ADPrep /forestprep" on the Schema Master DC while it was offline. The provided a way to rollback if the update wasn't successfull and also prevented
replication to other DC while the Schema Upgrade was performed. I liked this way of doing it because of the easyness of the rollback (take a backup of your Schema Master, disconnect from network -easy with a VM-, upgrade schema. If it works, reconnect
the Schema Master and it replicate. It it didn't work, restore the backup).
With Windows Server 2012, this recommandation is not present anymore. Even more, you can do it from a separate remote server (domain joined or not). I've seen on Technet that doing it offline is still supported. They also say you can only disable the inbound and outbound replication to the Schema Master.
What's the safe way to do this ? Should I go with the old school offline way or do it online from a remote WS2012 server ?
Currently, all my DC runs WS2003 R2 SP2. The Schema version is 47 (WS2008R2) because we planned to do it last year with WS2008R2, but the project was delayed and we decided this year to go to WS2012.
Thanks everyone for your help !
Dominic