Configuring Windows NT 4.0 licensing replication

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Applies To: Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2003 with SP1, Windows Server 2003 with SP2

Configuring Windows NT 4.0 licensing replication

A server running Windows NT Server 4.0 replicates licensing data to a designated master server. By default, a server running Windows NT Server 4.0 replicates licensing data to the domain controller in its domain. An administrator can configure the domain controller to either retain the licensing data or replicate it to a designated enterprise server, which collects licensing data from all domains in an enterprise. This is different from a server running Windows 2000 or Windows Server 2003 , which always replicates to the site license server.

If you are administering licensing for a Windows 2000 or Windows Server 2003 operating system site, you can still configure replication for any server running Windows NT Server 4.0 in your network. For a Windows NT 4.0 domain controller, you can select Domain Controller (the default setting) to retain the licensing information for the domain on the domain controller. Alternatively, you can specify that the licensing information for the domain replicate to a specified enterprise server. Preferably, you want to consolidate licensing information from a Windows NT 4.0 domain controller with other information for your enterprise. To do this, choose to replicate licensing information to an enterprise server and specify the site license server as the enterprise server.

If a server running Windows NT Server 4.0 replicates to a domain controller that then replicates to an enterprise licensing database, data can take longer to reach the site license server than with a server running Windows 2000 or Windows Server 2003 replicating directly to the site license server. For example, with a replication interval of 24 hours, information can take up to 24 hours to replicate to a domain controller and then up to 24 additional hours to replicate to a site license server. When the option to replicate to the enterprise server is available for a server that is not a domain controller, you can speed the replication process by specifying that replication should go directly to the site license server.

Important

For more information about replication in Windows 2000 or Windows Server 2003 operating systems, see Licensing replication. For more information about master server replication options for servers running Windows NT 4.0, see " Additional replication options for earlier versions of Windows servers" in Configuring licensing replication. To locate the site license server for a site, see Find the site license server for a site. To view replication settings for a Windows NT 4.0 Server, follow the procedure Configure replication for a server.