Installing New Catalog Servers in Windows Server 2008



Configuring a domain controller to serve as a global catalog server is a fairly straightforward process. To start, open the Active Directory Sites and Services management console. When it opens, expand Sites within the tree view. Below the Sites node, expand your site’s name; then expand the Servers node in which your server’s name is listed. Find the NTDS node, right-click it, and choose Properties. On the General page of the Properties dialog box, select the Global Catalog checkbox.

Note: To open Active Directory Sites and Services, click Start from the Taskbar and then select Control Panel and then Administrative Tools and then select Active Directory Sites and Services.

Each Windows Server 2008 site or Windows 2000 site containing Microsoft Message Queue 1.0 clients running on Windows NT 4.0, Windows 98, or Windows 95 computers must include at least one Windows Server 2008 domain controller running the Message Queuing directory service (Downlevel Client Support) configured as a global catalog server. Alternatively, you can have at least one Windows 2000 domain controller running a Message Queuing server and configured as a global catalog server from the domain of each such client. This is necessary to allow such clients to send queries programmatically to Message Queuing servers.

If you currently use a Windows NT 4.0 PDC (Primary Domain Controller), this box is automatically promoted to a domain controller configured as a global catalog server when it is migrated.

The first domain controller in a Windows Server 2008 forest is automatically configured as a global catalog server.