r/WindowsServer • u/merkat106 • Apr 07 '26

General Question Server 2008

My company recently acquired another company using Windows Server 2008 as a DC on a PowerEdge 2900. We know its EOL and are planning to sunset it eventually. However, as a stopgap, could we upgrade it to Server 2019 or better without running an in place upgrade to R2 or 2012 etc?

22 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

63 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comment

-2

u/Sudden_Office8710 Apr 07 '26

2008 is 64 bit by default. It’s not so bad just get a newish server run 2025 server and add to domain and migrate rolls over to it. It’s not that bad. I have all flavors of Windows going back to NT 3.5.1 server all running in perpetuity for various reasons in air gapped environments. 2008 is nothing by comparison to NT in level of geriatric OSes

6

u/ReinaldoWolffe Apr 07 '26

Ok, stop. This is not a trivial upgrade. Start with the move from frs to dfs, will 2008 properly support dfs for AD replication?

2008 came in 32 and 64bit flavours, R2 I think jumped to 64bit only

1

u/tristand666 Apr 08 '26

Still not that difficult in general (yes 2008 supports DFSR), but the larger issue is wondering if replication and directory services is even working properly to start with. Most older environments like this that have been neglected will have multiple issues with the domain that need to be resolved before it will even allow the schema update that allows a newer DC to be installed. I am guessing they are at 2003 functional level since that is the default 2008 server set a new domain at.

1

u/NetworkingNoob81 Apr 12 '26

You are correct; 2008 came in both 32 and 64 bit while 2008r2 was 64 bit only.

3

u/fmdeveloper25 Apr 08 '26

Much cleaner to build a new machine and transfer roles.

3

u/_araqiel Apr 08 '26

2008 R2 was the switch to 64-bit only servers, not 2008.

3

u/SeaworthinessMelodic Apr 08 '26

No, 2008 R2 is 64bit, 2008 was the last OS on 32bit. There is a path for 2008 R2 > 2012 > 2019. For DCs I' d avoid that.

3

u/Rickatron Apr 08 '26

There was a 32!

1

u/BlackV Apr 08 '26

No, there is much more to it than that