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Changing a Windows 2000 Server's Name

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by tonywildcat17 1 view

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We are in the process of switching over from NT to 2000 server. We brought up a 2nd server for the switch. The second server was just to act as a substitute until we had 2000 ready. The substitute server also had NT running.

The naming of the servers is "master" and "master2". Right now the substitute is master and the 2000 server is master2. We now want to switch over to the 2000 server, but it will not let us change the name of the 2000 server back to master.

There is no conflict with the network, because we change the NT server's name before we tried the 2000. The error that we get is something about the 2000 server being the domain controller so we cannot change the name.

We really need to get this changed. The only other option is to change all of the mappings of the workstation computers. I can do this through the login scripts, but it would be alot nicer to have the names back to what they should be. Please help. Thanks in advance

6 replies

by jose_12650

Try demoting the machine as a domain controller, change the name then promote it back as a domain controller.

by monice

It is not possible to rename a Windows 2000 domain controller as long as it is in service as a domain controller because of the extensive changes that need to be made to Active Directory if the computer that houses Active Directory is renamed. However, you can demote the domain controller to a member server in the domain, rename the server, and then re-promote the member server to domain controller status in the original domain. The link below will take you to an article that describes the potential consequences of using this process and how to use this process to rename a domain controller.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;296592

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