As you plan your upgrade strategy, consider the following:

• To begin the upgrade process, all SMS 2003 sites to be upgraded must be at the SMS 2003 SP2 level or above.
  
  
• Regardless of the method used to upgrade a Microsoft Systems Management Server (SMS) 2003 hierarchy, you must always begin at the central site. It is not supported to have a Configuration Manager 2007 site reporting to an SMS 2003 parent site.
  
  
• During the upgrade process, parent site data is synchronized with the upgraded child site. Because this resynchronization process might cause many files to be replicated for each child site that is upgraded, you should ensure that the parent site has completed the resynchronization process with each upgraded child site before continuing the hierarchy upgrade process. If multiple sites are upgraded during a short period of time, the resynchronization process might cause file backlogs at the parent site that could degrade parent site processing performance.
  
  

  Note
  Because installing new child primary sites results in similar file replication actions, it is not recommended to install new Configuration Manager sites in the hierarchy during the upgrade process.

• SMS 2003 primary sites cannot be managed using a Configuration Manager console. You must install a remote SMS 2003 Administrator console to manage any SMS 2003 child primary sites when the SMS 2003 primary site's parent site is upgraded to Configuration Manager 2007.
  
  

  Note
  SMS 2003 secondary sites can be managed from within the Configuration Manager 2007 console.

• When upgrading SMS 2003 Administrator consoles by using the Configuration Manager Setup Wizard, a new Configuration Manager console is installed side-by-side with the existing SMS 2003 Administrator console. After the Configuration Manager console is installed, there is no option to separately uninstall the SMS 2003 Administrator console and both consoles will be uninstalled when the Configuration Manager console is uninstalled. If you will not need an SMS 2003 Administrator console to manage an existing SMS 2003 primary site, you should uninstall the SMS 2003 Administrator console before installing the Configuration Manager console.
  
  To uninstall the SMS 2003 Administrator console during the upgrade process, the /upgrade Setup command-line option can be used instead of the Configuration Manager Setup Wizard. When the command Setup /upgrade is used to upgrade an SMS 2003 Administrator console, the existing SMS 2003 Administrator console is uninstalled before the new Configuration Manager console is installed.
  
  

  Note
  After upgrading an SMS 2003 Administrator console, the new Configuration Manager console might not be connected to the site database. To connect the Configuration Manager console to the Configuration Manager site database, use the Connect to Site Database Wizard. For more information about the Connect to Site Database Wizard, see Connect to Site Database Wizard.

• Site boundaries created in SMS 2003 sites cannot be modified from within a Configuration Manager console after an SMS 2003 site is upgraded. When an SMS 2003 site is upgraded, the pre-existing SMS 2003 site boundaries for the upgraded site will become read only in the Configuration Manager console and cannot be modified. To change the site boundaries for a site after an upgrade, the existing SMS 2003 site boundary must be deleted and a new site boundary created.
  
  
• During the upgrade process, existing default collections are re-created. If custom membership rules were created for default collections before upgrading the site, the membership rules for default collections will remain and will continue using the customized query values. If any of the default Configuration Manager 2007 collections are not present on the site to be upgraded, they will be created during the upgrade process. To avoid re-creating the default collections during the upgrade process, the /NODEFAULTCOLL Setup command-line option can be used. For more information about the /NODEFAULTCOLL Setup command-line option, see Setup Command Line Options.
  
  
• Any non-SMS files or folders that are in the SMS 2003 folder structure will be deleted when SMS 2003 is upgraded. To avoid removing non-SMS data when SMS is upgraded or removed, install SMS in a folder that does not contain other application or data files.
  
  
• If you have extended your Active Directory schema for SMS 2003, you should update your schema extensions for Configuration Manager 2007. Schema extensions are not required but are strongly recommended and provide many benefits to Configuration Manager 2007 sites. For more information about deciding whether or not to extend the Active Directory schema for Configuration Manager 2007, see Decide If You Should Extend the Active Directory Schema. For more information about how to extend the Active Directory schema for Configuration Manager 2007, see How to Extend the Active Directory Schema for Configuration Manager.
  
  
• Determine whether you want to upgrade all or some of your SMS 2003 sites to Configuration Manager 2007. Although SMS 2003 sites can report to a Configuration Manager parent site, it is not supported for a Configuration Manager site to report to an SMS 2003 parent site.
  
  
• Determine which SMS 2003 features you want to use. Configuration Manager 2007 has many useful features. Some features have requirements that must be met before you can use them. Keep your goals in mind as you determine which upgrade strategy helps you achieve the desired results, because feature requirements might conflict with your desired results.
  
  
• Due to changes in hardware inventory between SMS 2003 and Configuration Manager 2007, clients assigned to upgraded sites will perform an inventory resynchronization, sending full hardware inventory reports instead of delta reports. If many clients perform resynchronization at the same time, these inventory resynchronizations might cause excessive load on the network and might cause the site systems in your Configuration Manager 2007 hierarchy to take a long time to process hardware inventory data. To reduce the load on your network and Configuration Manager 2007 site servers, consider performing site upgrades in stages to prevent too many clients from resynchronizing at the same time.
  
  
• SMS 2003 hardware inventory customizations are not migrated when you upgrade to Configuration Manager 2007. You must manually include those customizations in the configuration.mof file (custom data classes) and the SMS_def.mof file (custom reporting classes) that are created during the upgrade process after the site upgrade has completed.
  
  

  Important

  The default SMS_def.mof hardware inventory reporting file located in the Configuration Manager installation source files should not be modified before beginning the site upgrade process. During site installation, the SMS_def.mof file is updated depending on the configuration of the site to be upgraded. Modifying the default SMS_def.mof file before beginning the upgrade process might cause the upgrade to be unsuccessful.

• When you upgrade a site, customized inventory names are migrated from SMS 2003 and default inventory collection names are installed. If you have previously removed any default inventory collection names, the collection names reappear in Software Inventory Client Agent Properties after the upgrade.
  
  
• Upgrading a site to a different language is not supported. When upgrading sites, ensure that the site to be upgraded is running in the same localized language as the version you are upgrading to.
  
  
• Software updates metadata is migrated during a site upgrade, but there are some limitations when scanning for software updates compliance using SMS 2003 inventory scan tools and deploying software updates to SMS 2003 clients. For more information, see Planning the SMS 2003 Software Updates Upgrade.
  
  

  Important

  Configuration Manager 2007 does not support upgrading sites with the SMS 2003 R2 Vulnerability Assessment Tool installed. You should first uninstall the Vulnerability Assessment Tool before upgrading an SMS 2003 R2 site to Configuration Manager 2007. After upgrading the site to Configuration Manager 2007, the desired configuration management vulnerability assessment configuration items can be downloaded.

• Parcels created with Courier Sender Manager in Configuration Manager 2007 cannot be read on SMS 2003 child sites.
  
  
• If you installed a new Configuration Manager 2007 site server, a site reset sets the access control lists (ACLs) back to the original settings. If you upgrade an existing Systems Management Server (SMS) 2003 site, Setup does not change the permissions on the upgraded directories. Also, if you do a site reset of a site that was upgraded from SMS 2003, the site reset does not reset the ACLs on the upgraded directories.
  
  

See Also

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To contact the documentation team, e-mail SMSdocs@microsoft.com.