Take a system state backup of the DC’s which hold your FSMO roles, just incase. Always good practice to take a backup.

In this example, we are migrating FSMO roles from 2008 DC to 2012 DC

1) Locate where your FSMO roles are located. Logon to a DC, open command prompt and type, netdom query fmso
Depending on the size of your environment your FSMO roles may be split as show below:

The roles are:

Split 1
PDC
RID pool manager
Infrastructure Master

Split 2:
Domain Naming Master
Schema Master

Transfer: PDC, RID pool manager, Infrastructure Master

1) Logon to the DC2012 as domain administrator and ensure the account has schema admin rights, else when you get to the schema master migration, the button will be greyed out.
2) Launch Active Directory Users and Computers
3) Right click on yourdomain.local and click Operations Masters
4) Click on the PDC tab, click the change button to change the role to 2012DC
5) Click Yes to confirm when prompted
6) Confirm the text box now shows DC2012 as new owner of PDC role
7) Repeat the same steps above for RID and Infrastructure Roles

Transfer: Domain Naming Master

1) Logon to 2012DC as domain administrator. If you’re placing all roles on the same server you will already be logged onto this server. If you are separating Domain Naming Master and Schema Master role, logon to
DC2012_number2
2) Launch Active Directory Domains and Trusts
3) Right click on Active Directory Domains and Trusts and click Operations Masters
4) Click change and select new 2012 DC, click Yes to confirm.
5) Confirm the role has changed

Transfer: Schema Master

1) Logon to your 2012 DC as domain administrator
2) click run and type: regsvr32 schmmgmt.dll
3) Click ok and you should be prompted with ‘DllRegisterServer in schmmgmt.dll succeeded’
4) Click ok
5) Launch mmc from run (Click start, run, and type mmc, click ok)
6) Click Add/Remove Snap-In from file menu
7) Select to highlight Active Directory Schema and click the add button
8) Click OK
9) Right click Active Directory Schema and click Change Active Directory Domain Controller
10) Select New 2012 DC and click OK
11) An information box will appear including a message ‘Active Directory Schema snap-in is not connected to the schema operations master…..) Click OK to this message
12) Right click Active Directory Schema and click Operations Master
13) Click change and select new 2012 DC
14) Click Yes to confirm go ahead
15) Confirm schema server now showing as new 2012 DC

Run command netdom query fmso to confirm location of FSMO roles

It will take time for data to copy around so do not decom old DC straightaway.