Moving DHCP to Server 2012

By | April 28, 2014
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I’ve just setup a couple of new 2012 Standard Domain Controllers for a customer and I wanted to be able to take advantage of the DHCP failover. Their old Domain Controller were Server 2003 SBS so I did a bit of research and here is how I moved the DHCP in just a couple of minutes.

Once this process is done all that remains is to deauthorize your old DHCP setup.

To move a DHCP database and configuration from a server that is running Windows Server 2003 to another server that is running Windows Server 2012

  1. Log on to the source DHCP server
  2. Click Start, click Run, type cmd in the Open box, and then click OK
  3. Type netsh dhcp server export C:dhcp.txt all, and then press ENTER
  4. Install the DHCP server service on the destination DHCP server
  5. Log on to the destination DHCP server
  6. Copy the exported DHCP database file to the local hard disk of the destination DHCP server
  7. Verify that the DHCP service is started on the destination DHCP server
  8. Click Start, click Run, type cmd in the Open box, and then click OK
  9. Type netsh dhcp server import C:dhcp.txt all, and then press ENTER
  10. Open DHCP.
  11. In the console tree, click DHCP.
  12. On the Action menu, click Authorize

That is all there is to it.