AD name change ? How ?

Smoothdrive · May 8, 2003, 10:28 AM

Did anyone here ever succeed in renaming an AD domain ?

If so..what's the best method ?

gerryf · May 8, 2003, 02:54 PM

To the best of my knowledge, there is no way to do this, other than

Strictly speaking, your active directory is not named (although it will
have a guid). You could re-run dcpromo, remove active directory, then rerun
dcpromo again to repromote with the new name, but that means you will lose the contents of your directory.

Windows 2003 server, however, does have the ability to do this...planning on upgrading?

Smoothdrive · May 9, 2003, 08:09 AM

No upgrade planned no..working on a server for a couple of friends ..unfortunatelly the AD has been setup with their website domain as Domain..and they are using this server profesionally so i have to be carefull not to upset their production enviroment.

Tought he rerunning of dcpromo would be the way..was hoping some account/pc info/rights may remain by using another method but logic says that all will be lost indeed since you effectively delete the AD and set up a new one.

Thanks anyway

XBoy · May 15, 2003, 05:57 PM

what you could is first back up the users and computers from the AD and export it to a .ldif file. Then delete the AD and create a one, then import the users. Another one is to use the AD Migration Tool (from MS). You create a new AD and essentially run the tool to migrate the users over. It's a bitch..

May 8, 2003, 10:28 AM	#1
Smoothdrive Foolish Genius Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Amsterdam Posts: 455 Rep Power: 0	AD name change ? How ? Did anyone here ever succeed in renaming an AD domain ? If so..what's the best method ? __________________ GA-7VRXP, AMD2000+, 256MB PC-2700 DDR, Radeon 8500LE, 2x Maxtor 740 (40GB) stripe set, AGNeovo X-150.

May 9, 2003, 08:09 AM	Thread Starter #3
Smoothdrive Foolish Genius Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Amsterdam Posts: 455 Rep Power: 0	No upgrade planned no..working on a server for a couple of friends ..unfortunatelly the AD has been setup with their website domain as Domain..and they are using this server profesionally so i have to be carefull not to upset their production enviroment. Tought he rerunning of dcpromo would be the way..was hoping some account/pc info/rights may remain by using another method but logic says that all will be lost indeed since you effectively delete the AD and set up a new one. Thanks anyway __________________ GA-7VRXP, AMD2000+, 256MB PC-2700 DDR, Radeon 8500LE, 2x Maxtor 740 (40GB) stripe set, AGNeovo X-150.

May 15, 2003, 05:57 PM	#4
XBoy DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Apr 2003 Posts: 18 Rep Power: 0	AD name change what you could is first back up the users and computers from the AD and export it to a .ldif file. Then delete the AD and create a one, then import the users. Another one is to use the AD Migration Tool (from MS). You create a new AD and essentially run the tool to migrate the users over. It's a bitch..

May 8, 2003, 02:54 PM	#2
gerryf DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: May 2003 Posts: 32 Rep Power: 0	To the best of my knowledge, there is no way to do this, other than Strictly speaking, your active directory is not named (although it will have a guid). You could re-run dcpromo, remove active directory, then rerun dcpromo again to repromote with the new name, but that means you will lose the contents of your directory. Windows 2003 server, however, does have the ability to do this...planning on upgrading?