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Renaming domain computers

Hi everyone, I have a recently virtualized workstation, that is a member of our active directory domain. I need to rename it and change its IP address. Then I need to take its old computer name and assign it to a new physical workstation (already a domain member).

How should I do it to avoid any AD problems?

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Joseph Moody

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Leroy Luff

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Will Szymkowski

Properly re-naming a machine therough the System Properties on a clinet or server does the following...
- changes the computer name only (not the SID in active directory)
- it also updates the DNS record that is associated with it as well this change will replicate to all DNS servers
- Depending on the TTL you have set for your DNS zone you may have to ipconfig /flushdns if you need immediate access to this machine by name
- you can then use the old computer name and re-purpose it for another machine in your environment

Aside from that everything should be fine as said already.

Will.

Mike

Since you did a P2V, make sure the physical workstation is offline before you power up your VM. If not, this may cause issues. Past that, you can simply rename it and just make sure DNS records are updated.

Martin Andel

ASKER

Thanks!