How to Downgrade Forest and Domain Functional Levels

Downgrade the Forest Functional Level

Step 1. Open PowerShell with elevated privileges.

Step 2. Execute the following command, replace the identity with your domain name and the forestmode with the level you want to downgrade to.

Set-ADForestMode –Identity “CANITPRO.com” –ForestMode Windows2008Forest

In the above example, I have downgraded the forest functional level to Windows Server 2008.

Downgrade the Domain Functional Level

Step 1. Open PowerShell with elevated privileges.

Step 2. Execute the following command, replace identity with your domain name and domainmode with the level you want to downgrade to.

Set-ADDomainMode –Identity “CANITPRO.com” –DomainMode Windows2008Domain

In the above example, I have downgraded the domain functional level to Windows Server 2008.

To confirm, execute the following commands

Get-ADForest
Get-ADDomain

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