Using this reg key is the only way i have been able to power down ALL my DCs and then start bringing them back online starting with the 2008 DC. If you add the reg key in this KB to your 2008 DC, you can then reboot it with no other DC on the network and it will boot up fine and function as a DC. The only way around this porblem that i have found is with the MS KB: you have no 2003 DCs) - how do you power down your entire environment? Because when you try to power up your first 2008 DC - its not going to function as a DC - the others will do the same im assuming? So this seems to just be an issue that impacts 2008. If you boot a 2003DC all on its own, it functions perfectly fine as a DC - but if you boot a 2008 DC on its own - it fails. I then powered it off and did the same thing with the other 2003 DC - everything came up good with that DC too. Then i powered up just one of the 2003 DCs - it powered up fine, logged in, all is working - this 2003 DC still thinks its a DC. It took about 10mins to boot - bad sign - and when i logged in, AD/DNS etc were not working and this DC does not think that it is a DC anymore.
![the dns server is waiting for active directory domain services 4013 the dns server is waiting for active directory domain services 4013](https://www.rebeladmin.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/c11.jpg)
Then i powered back on the new 2008 DC first, on its own. This event will be logged every two minutes until AD DS has signaled that the initial synchronization has successfully completed. If events in the AD DS event log indicate that there is a problem with DNS name resolution, consider adding the IP address of another DNS server for this domain to the DNS server list in the Internet Protocol properties of this computer. The DNS server service cannot start until the initial synchronization is complete because critical DNS data might not yet be replicated onto this domain controller. The DNS server is waiting for Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) to signal that the initial synchronization of the directory has been completed. The only error on the new 2008R2 DC is event 4013 in the DNS log - it only pops up once, just after a reboot - and never pops up again until after the next reboot. All is running fine, no errors in logs and replication is working. My environment - i have 2x 2003 DCs, last week i built up a new 2008R2 DC (did all the prep work and dcpromoed) - then transfered all 5 FSMO roles to the 2008R2 DC - this will be our new main DC. I have been testing this out - it seems to be known and expected behaviour - so im wondering how you deal with this or if you have a way to completely bring down your environment, and then bring it back up without any problems? When you have a 2008R2 setup as a DC/DNS and DNS is AD-Integrated, if you power off all your DCs (say for maintenance or planned power outage etc), if you try to boot your 2008R2 DC *FIRST* before any other DC.DNS/AD will not function and your 2008R2 box will not act as a DC.
![the dns server is waiting for active directory domain services 4013 the dns server is waiting for active directory domain services 4013](https://2ndlive.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/4013.jpg)
![the dns server is waiting for active directory domain services 4013 the dns server is waiting for active directory domain services 4013](https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_zBcT8UwkIc/UguMoAnG9hI/AAAAAAAAB_c/WGHkZM6gy8s/s1600/capture_06082013_231451.jpg)
Wondering how others with 2008R2 DCs are dealing with this issue.