It is often asked what’s the best way to rename a computer that is already part of an SBS network/domain. Many, including me, believed that it was necessary to first disjoin the computer from the domain, delete the computer from AD, and then rejoin it to the domain, assigning the new name.
Now here comes news that will please your ears (with a tip of the sombero to Chad Gross): there’s a far simpler way!
Simply logon to the computer in question as a domain administrator and rename the computer. In the process of renaming it, it will also update AD for you automatically.
That’s fine for just a simple rename, but I think where folks get confused is when a workstaion was not joined to the domain using http:///connectcomputer to begin with.
In this case, it is necessary to disjoin the computer from the domain into a workgroup… along with changing it’s name and then rejoining.
Jeffrey B. Kane
TechSoEasy
http://www.techsoeasy.com/answers.html
I had my first chance to try this the other night and it wouldn’t work. The error message – which I can’t remmber now – was not too obvious. After a few attempts, reboots, whatever, seeing the error for the nth time, it finally made sense. The workstation has a mapped drive via logon script. Once the drive was unmapped, the name change went as expected.
Thanks,
Buddy Greenshield
Greenshield Computer Services
Bend, OR