Domain renaming and restructuring

[Anthony Litterio]

the firm in which I work has recently undergone a name
change. The powers above, would like to have the domain
name changed, so they don't feel like they are logging
into the old system. Every PC and server, along with the
DNS, etc. must refelct the new name. Where do begin in
doing this? We have all windows 2000 servers, and Windows
XP desktops.

Thanks

Tony

 

[Scott Harding - MS MVP]

You cannot rename a domain in Win2k. This is a tremendous undertaking and
should be avoided if possible. The only way to go is either to go back to
NT4 and lose your current Active Directory or upgrade your domain to Win2k3
and use the domain rename tool but there are many things to consider with
that. If exchange is in the mix that is a major concern. You could also
setup a seperate domain that has the correct name and then use the ADMT tool
to move all your user/computer accounts to this new domain. This is probably
the easiest as you could setup a trust between these domain and slowly
migrate everything over. This is not going to easy and probably not worth it
either but sometimes you can't convince management I would suggest doing
some reading in the KNowledge base about the domain rename tool for WIn2k3
and what you can and can't do with it.