Hi All

OK, OK this could be classed as my fault, but I'm really a newbie when it
comes to servers, AD, etc. I can manage the process OK, but I'm not what I'd
call an edugeek :0)

In a nutshell I look after two schools and we had a Windows 2003 Server R2
machine in both so that we could utilise AD to manage users, lockdown the
PCs with GPO, shares for teachers, shares for pupils, etc. Nice and basic.

After 3 years or so we thought it best to buy new servers with better specs,
new warranty, etc and put them in. This is where we got caught out.
Originally, one school bought a server from say company A and the other
school bought their server from company B. This time we bought both servers
from company B.

The first installation that had a company A server and then a company B
server seemed to move over fine. My plan was that after transferring all of
the profile/My Docs and 'shares' data from the old server to the new server,
I would 'downgrade/demote' the old server to basically a file server so that
this could store the bulk of the multimedia crap (ie video, music and pics)
that they produce and the new/main server would only hold the profile/My
docs data and leaner shares data.

To get the client PCs to 'see/use' the new PC my idea was to 'undomain' them
(ie put them on workgroup of FRED), restart, add them to the domain, restart
and then we'd be up-and-running. I just thought that would be the process.
Nice and simple.

I then used the built in feature of W2k3 server to remove the AD stuff from
the old server (this automatically put it onto workgroup), stopped the DNS
and DHCP services permanently, changed its IP and computer name to not
conflict with the new server, restarted, added it back to the domain of the
new server.

All of the above seemed to work fine and the reason it seems to have is
because the domain name of the old server was/is different to the one used
on the new server.

Unaware of this I proceeded to do the above at the 2nd school and hit a
crapstorm of issues. Logging on existing machines with the above in place
resulted in completely intermittent GPO stuff coming through (eg desktop
shortcuts sometime coming, sometimes not; map drives appearing not
appearing; My Docs redirection working/not working) and laptops with offline
files enabled going completely gaga such as saying they aren't connected
then saying they are and so on.

Having thought about it the only thing diff was that the domain name of the
old is exactly the same as the new and it **appears** that the existing PCs
are logging on and then looking at the old settings (I'm guessing the
foolders in C:/Docs&Settings) and losing the plot.

To try and remedy the situation I put the PCs back on workgroup, zapped the
Offline cache (Ctrl+Shift+Del??) and deleted all of the profile (?) folders
that are in a PC's C:/Docs & Settings folder.

I've got loads of PCs to do and I just feel like I'm botching something as I
go.

Before I continue with this task I just wanted to check with the gurus that:

a) Am I right in saying because the domain name is the same on both this has
caused the issue?

b) What should I have really done when going from old server to new?

c) Is the approach I'm taking correct?

d) Is there a better way or is my cumbersome method the only fix?

e) Am I OK leaving the old server on the network in it's demoted state or is
this the root of the problem?

Thanks for any advice you can give.