Demote a 2003 Domain Controller in a 2012 DC Environment

Demote a 2003 Domain Controller in a 2012 DC Environment

Log into the 2012 Domain controller and

Navigate from Dashboard  to Tools in Active Directory sites and Services right click on the 2012 Domain controller and click properties. Verify the Domain Controller is a Global Catalog Server

Open up Powershell and run the following cmds

Import-Module ActiveDirectory

Move-ADDirectoryServerOperationMasterRole -Identity "Target-DC" -OperationMasterRole 0,1,2,3,4

This moves the FSMO roles to the 2012 DC

Netdom query FSMO

This verifies the roles have been successfully transferred 

Verify the 2012 Domain controller no longer has the DNS network settings of the 2003 DC

Log into the 2003 Domain Controller

Stop the services DNS server  and netlogon on the 2003 Domain Controller

Run dcpromo from the 2003 DC

Click next

Click Next

Click next

Enter a new password for the local administrator and Click Next twice

Click Finish

Restart the 2003 Server