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by d.jones092

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Hello All...

We want to remove one of our Active Directory servers from service. The question is, can we safely delete the machine's account (remove it from the domain), replace the physical box with a better machine, yet give the new machine the name of the server that's been removed? Is there any additional clean up that has to take place before, in-between, or at the end of the process?

Thanks for any info.

Dennis Jones

5 replies

by tumtum73

This really depends on the services running on the server. If it has any of the FSMO roles you will need to transfer them first to another server. After that, you simply remove the server from the network, delete the computer account, wait for the change to be replicated, and add the new server with the same name.

Steve

by cg it

you can dcpromo demote the server to a member server then you can delete the computer via AD from AD. Once you do that, you can then add e.g. dcpromo promote the new server with the same name into AD. Security tokens are unique to a machine and are not based upon a machine name you give it like server1 or NS1.

The FSMO means Flexible Single Master Operation [there are 5 roles to assign so some call it 5 Flexible Single Master Operation roles]. Usually associated with a large Enterprise that runs a complex forest and domains. Certain roles like schema master are assigned to DCs to prevent conflicts in the network. Here's a link about FSMO roles. http://www.winnetmag.com/Article/ArticleID/13385/13385.html

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