sql server replication: Can i replicate from SQL 2K SP3a publisher to SP4 subscribers ?

Can i replicate from SQL 2K SP4 publisher to SP3a subscribers ?

Or do I have to upgrade them all to SP4 ?

What about replicating from SQL2K to SQL 2005 and vice versa ?

Thanks

YES.

You can replicate from SP3a to SP4 and from SP4 to SP3a.

You might face problems upgrading from SP3a to SP4 if you have a Publisher
or a Subscriber setup for Merge Replication.

The reason why I say "You might face problems... " is that it happens
occationally and i was not able to figure out the reason why. The work around
to beat this problem is to drop replication and set it up again [in case if
you are doing the upgrade on the Publisher server]

If you face the problem on the Subscriber, there are two workarounds which I
figured out.

Workaround #1

i) Stop the replication
ii) Detatch the subscriber database
iii) Upgrade to SP4
iv) Reattach the subscriber database

Workaround #2

i) Stop the replication
ii) Delete the subscriber information from the publishing database
iii) Upgrade to SP4
iv) Add the subscriber server back and start replication.

Cheers :)

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