Fileserver upgrade Windows Server 2012 R2 datacenter to Windows Server 2022 Standard

Question

Hi,

We have a VM running Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter (Datacenter is not needed, it has just been selected when installed :) that is a file server that contains homeshares and shared directories for many users. As I can see we have two possibilities...

1. We need to either do a In-Place-Upgrade to Windows Server 2019, then go to Windows Server 2022.
2. We create a new Windows Server 2022 Standard VM and some how migrate the data over to this server.

What would you recommend, we don't want to mess up the user rights..... I have not migrated a "homeshare server" before, so is there anything else I should consider... We might change the hostname, but not sure yet, guess that could cause problems if there are some GPO`s or other things mapped to the hostname.

Thanks for answers.

/R
Andre

Answer 1

Maybe this one helps.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/storage/storage-migration-service/migrate-data

--please don't forget to upvote and Accept as answer if the reply is helpful--

Answer 2

An in-place upgrade is supported from Windows Server 2019 to Windows Server 2022. It is, however, always recommended to clean install.
There shouldn't be any prerequisites required. For more information about the in-place upgrade, see:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/get-started/install-upgrade-migrate#in-place-upgrade