Domain Controller 2019 with Windows 2003 member servers

Question

We’re planning to promote our existing Domain controllers from Windows Server 2008 to Windows server 2019.
As of now we don’t have any plans to raise the functional level.
Current forest/domain level is at Windows Server 2008

We have several Windows Server 2003 running as member servers. Will that be a problem for 2003 member servers if we upgrade Domain controllers to 2019 ? Upgrading 2003 servers is currently not an option.

I read some comments about 2003 using smbv1.

Now is there any specific thing that’ll stop working for all existing 2003 members once we upgrade DC’s to 2019?

Do we need to enable smbv1 on all 2019 DC’s for 2003 member servers to work fine?

If yes, is there any different process to enable it on DC’s? Or we need to enable it like its done on any other 2019 servers like mentioned in below URL?

https://blog.baeke.info/2020/06/08/adding-smb1-protocol-support-to-windows-server-2019/amp/

Answer 1

Hi @Yankee30 ,

You can have Windows Server 2003 domain-joined machines in an Active Directory Domain Services (ADDS) 2019 environment, as long as SMBv1 is enabled.
I do believe you would need to have SMBv1 enabled on your Domain Controllers, to enable SMBv1 you can have a look here:

How to detect, enable and disable SMBv1, SMBv2, and SMBv3 in Windows
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/storage/file-server/troubleshoot/detect-enable-and-disable-smbv1-v2-v3

I understand your need of keeping the Windows Server 2003 machines, but I would just like to point out that it is very highly recommended to upgrade/get rid of them, as SMBv1 is also a high security risk.

----------

(If the reply was helpful please don't forget to upvote and/or accept as answer, thank you)

Best regards,
Leon

Answer 2

@Leon Laude I reviewed and followed the article you pointed to @Yankee30 but I am still getting the error attached... Any ideas or suggestion,s please? I too have Windows 2003 that I MUST join to a Windows 2016 functional level domain.