Supported Upgrade Paths

Published: April 24, 2003 | Updated: December 6, 2005

When upgrading operating systems, a clean install is recommended as best practice. However, if customers opt to upgrade from a previously installed operating system, they can consult the following table for supported upgrade paths. Locate your current operating system in the left column and scan its row for supported upgrade path options.

Note that localized products cannot be upgraded across languages. For example, the Japanese version of Windows 2000 Server cannot be upgraded by an English version of Windows Server 2003 or Windows Server 2003 R2. Multilingual User Interface-enabled servers, however, can be upgraded by English versions of Windows Server 2003 or Windows Server 2003 R2.

Supported Upgrade Paths in Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2003 R2

Details on this benchmark:
	Standard Edition (including R2)	Enterprise Edition (including R2)	Datacenter Edition (including R2)	Web Edition	Windows Small Business Server 2003
Windows NT 3.51
Windows NT 4.0* Server	•	•
Windows NT 4.0* Terminal Server Edition	•	•
Windows NT 4.0* Enterprise Edition		•
Windows 2000 Server	•	•			•
Windows 2000 Advanced Server		•
Windows 2000 Datacenter Server			•
Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition or Windows Server 2003 R2 Standard Edition	•	•			•
Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition or Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition		•
Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Edition or Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition			•
Windows Server 2003 Web Edition				•
Windows Server 2003** Beta3/RC1/RC2	•	•	•	•
Small Business Server 2000					•
Windows Small Business Server 2003					•

* Windows NT® 4.0 upgrade is supported by Service Pack 5 (SP5) or later. If earlier version of server pack is installed, the upgrade is not possible.

** Interim releases of Windows Server 2003 will upgrade to the release to manufacturer (RTM) code of same edition. For example, RC1 Standard Edition upgrades to RTM Standard Edition.

Top of page