Im willing to assume that you would have to buy a new license for Server 2003. There should be an upgrade tool that will preserve your LDAP structure. Still, Backup just to be safe.
Yeah, IÂ’ve done extensive research and the process takes a bit more then just running an upgrade program. Here is the link if anyone else is interested.
As for backup, yes it is prob the most important part of the upgrade. Right now my options is to install another HD into my DC and ghosting an image of the DC into the new HD. If anything goes wrong id just plug the backup HD in and boot it from there, and of course, pray that it works.
I'm also going to export all the user data into a txt file. If all goes bad, ill just reinstall the DC and import the txt file.
It's the only DC so you have to run dcpromo. Reinstall DNS before or after, doesn't really matter but I usually install DNS and configure DNS first if DNS is on the same machine.