Question : Demote 2003 DC with DC PROMO fails Access is denied.

I just replaced 2 of my DC's with 2 New DC's.  all the roles are transferred to the new servers and everything seems to be working fine with the old DCs turned off.  So now I want to DCPROMO and remove the old.  In the process I am getting the following error:

The operation failed because: Active Directory could not configure the computer account SERVER$ on the remote domain controller firstolddc.domain.com. "Access is denied."

Specify an account with Enterprise Adminstrator privileges to the forest, home.domain.com.

I have done this and I keep getting the same error message over and over.  Where do I need to add permissions?  The user name I am using is a member of Enterprise Admin group.

Answer : Demote 2003 DC with DC PROMO fails Access is denied.

Hi ohmErnie,

try using this  DCPROMO /FORCEREMOVAL

you shouldnt have to use that but the dcpromo tool can be vaery buggy especially in regards to demotion

make sure you follow this afterwards
http://www.petri.co.il/delete_failed_dcs_from_ad.htm

Cheers!