Microsoft KB Archive/831792

= Restoration of empty attributes to AD =

Article ID: 831792

Article Last Modified on 11/21/2003

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APPLIES TO


 * Microsoft Windows 2000 Standard Edition
 * Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Standard Edition (32-bit x86)
 * Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition (32-bit x86)

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SYMPTOMS
You have restored a backup of the system state and made the Active Directory objects authoritatives but some attributes or objects come back when replication occurs.



CAUSE
When you back up the Active Directory, only attributes that are set are backed up. When you restore the data, you replace the local Active Directory by the objects that are in the backup. Then, the authoritative restore increases the version number of each attributes, so they are higher than on the other DCs. During next replication, restored attributes will overwrite those on the other domain controllers.

The attributes that were not set at the time of the backup are left empty by authoritative restores. As empty attributes don't have metadata (USN, version numbers, etc.), their version will then not be increased. Thus, when replication occurs, they will be set to the value replicated from the replication partner.

Also, if you create new objects in your Active Directory and then restore a backup done before they were added, they will be recreated locally after the next replication occurs. No deletion order is generated by authroritative restores.



MORE INFORMATION
Backup can be used to recover from lost informations : object deletion or attributes replacement for example but can't do anything regarding new objects or attributes added.

Keywords: kbactivedirectoryrepl kbactivedirectory KB831792

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