Installing vCenter 4.1 in a Windows 2000 Domain

I finally found some time to begin installing vCenter 4.1 into my new ESXi lab and ran into an error I thought I would share.  The error below (Error 28038. Setup cannot create vCenter Server Directory Services instance.) occurred due to the fact that despite installing on a Windows 2008 R2 server, my Active Directory was still in 2000 mode.  I’ve put off upgrading the domain until I had my new vSphere environment up and running.    A little chicken and egg scenario for me.  Luckily, VMware KB Article 1025668 came to the rescue!

A quick trip to Microsoft’s knowledge base to download a patch from a link delivered via email (yes, it felt a bit like a scavenger hunt); a quick reboot and I was back on track installing vCenter.
I also had to do a little housekeeping before reinstalling by deleting the %WinDir%ADAM directory.  Reverting the snapshot would have down the job as well.