Table of Contents

Advantages

Moving the FSMO roles with the AD PowerShell has the following advantages:

  1. It must not first connect to the future Domain Controller role holders.
  2. Only Seizing (role holder is offline) the FSMO roles will require an additional parameter, you must use -Force parameter.
  3. Transfering or Seizing the FSMO roles must not necessarily be done from the role holder or the future role holder. You can run the AD-Powershell command from a Windows 7 Client or Windows Server 2008 R2 member server (after RSAT is installed).

Powershell

The FSMO roles are moved to another Domain Controller by using the command: Move-ADDirectoryServerOperationMasterRole

Transfering all roles

Move-ADDirectoryServerOperationMasterRole -Identity "Target-DC" -OperationMasterRole SchemaMaster,RIDMaster,InfrastructureMaster,DomainNamingMaster,PDCEmulator

Seizing all roles

Move-ADDirectoryServerOperationMasterRole -Identity "Target-DC" -OperationMasterRole SchemaMaster,RIDMaster,InfrastructureMaster,DomainNamingMaster,PDCEmulator -Force

For example, my target Domain Controller name is DC1.

We use this command to transfer all roles to another Domain Controller:

Move-ADDirectoryServerOperationMasterRole -Identity "DC1" -OperationMasterRole SchemaMaster,RIDMaster,InfrastructureMaster,DomainNamingMaster,PDCEmulator

We use this command to seize all roles only from a permanently offline Domain Controller:

Move-ADDirectoryServerOperationMasterRole -Identity "DC1" -OperationMasterRole SchemaMaster,RIDMaster,InfrastructureMaster,DomainNamingMaster,PDCEmulator -Force

Names or numbers?

Instead of typing the Names of the operations master roles, Numbers may also be specified.

Here is table:

Role Name Number
PDCEmulator 0
RIDMaster 1
InfrastructureMaster 2
SchemaMaster 3
DomainNamingMaster 4

Transfering all roles

Move-ADDirectoryServerOperationMasterRole -Identity "Target-DC" -OperationMasterRole 0,1,2,3,4

Seizing all roles

Move-ADDirectoryServerOperationMasterRole -Identity "Target-DC" -OperationMasterRole 0,1,2,3,4 -Force

For example, my target Domain Controller name isDC1.

We use this command to transfer roles to another Domain Controller:

Move-ADDirectoryServerOperationMasterRole -Identity "DC1" -OperationMasterRole 0,1,2,3,4

We use this command to seize roles to another Domain Controller:

Move-ADDirectoryServerOperationMasterRole -Identity "DC1" -OperationMasterRole 0,1,2,3,4 -Force

Transfering or Seizing Domain Naming Master role

Transfering 

Move-ADDirectoryServerOperationMasterRole -Identity "Target-DC" -OperationMasterRole DomainNamingMaster

OR

Move-ADDirectoryServerOperationMasterRole -Identity "Target-DC" -OperationMasterRole 4

Seizing 

Move-ADDirectoryServerOperationMasterRole -Identity "Target-DC" -OperationMasterRole DomainNamingMaster -Force

OR

Move-ADDirectoryServerOperationMasterRole -Identity "Target-DC" -OperationMasterRole 4 -Force

Tansfering or Seizing Schema Master role

Transfering

Move-ADDirectoryServerOperationMasterRole -Identity "Target-DC" -OperationMasterRole SchemaMaster

OR

Move-ADDirectoryServerOperationMasterRole -Identity "Target-DC" -OperationMasterRole 3

Seizing

Move-ADDirectoryServerOperationMasterRole -Identity "Target-DC" -OperationMasterRole SchemaMaster -Force

OR

Move-ADDirectoryServerOperationMasterRole -Identity "Target-DC" -OperationMasterRole 3 -Force

Transfering or Seizing Infrastructure Master role

Transfering

Move-ADDirectoryServerOperationMasterRole -Identity "Target-DC" -OperationMasterRole InfrastructureMaster

OR

Move-ADDirectoryServerOperationMasterRole -Identity "Target-DC" -OperationMasterRole 2

Seizing

Move-ADDirectoryServerOperationMasterRole -Identity "Target-DC" -OperationMasterRole InfrastructureMaster -Force

OR

Move-ADDirectoryServerOperationMasterRole -Identity "Target-DC" -OperationMasterRole 2 -Force

Transfering or Seizing RID Master role

Transfering

Move-ADDirectoryServerOperationMasterRole -Identity "Target-DC" -OperationMasterRole RIDMaster

OR

Move-ADDirectoryServerOperationMasterRole -Identity "Target-DC" -OperationMasterRole 1

Seizing

Move-ADDirectoryServerOperationMasterRole -Identity "Target-DC" -OperationMasterRole RIDMaster -Force

OR

Move-ADDirectoryServerOperationMasterRole -Identity "Target-DC" -OperationMasterRole 1 -Force

Tansfering or Seizing PDC Emulator role

Transfering

Move-ADDirectoryServerOperationMasterRole -Identity "Target-DC" -OperationMasterRole PDCEmulator

OR

Move-ADDirectoryServerOperationMasterRole -Identity "Target-DC" -OperationMasterRole 0

Seizing

Move-ADDirectoryServerOperationMasterRole -Identity "Target-DC" -OperationMasterRole PDCEmulator -Force

OR

Move-ADDirectoryServerOperationMasterRole -Identity "Target-DC" -OperationMasterRole 0 -Force

Additional information

You can view FSMO role owner with this AD-Powershell commands:

Get-ADForest | select SchemaMaster,DomainNamingMaster
Get-ADDomain | select PDCEmulator,RIDMaster,InfrastructureMaster

References