Changing Company Name means Changing Domain Name

[Tom Celica]

Our Company Name is changing. And they have asked me to Chang the Name of
our Windows 2000 Domain Name.

Specifically they want our logins to chang from (e-mail address removed) to
(e-mail address removed) . And email to change from (e-mail address removed) to
(e-mail address removed)

This looks like a pretty large task. Please assist with filling in the
blanks I am missing:

1. Remove all computers/resources from the oldcompany.com domain.
2. Demote both Domain Controllers.
3. Promote the DC's as Domain Controllers with the new Domain Name:
Newcompany.com
4. Configre DNS to support the required domains.
4. Join the computers/resouces into the new domain

Question: What step am I missing?


Basically I have a few ideas about how to handle the Exchange Server

? - 1 Can I just rename the Exchange Server while it remains a member of
the oldcompany.com domain? -- Need to change exchange server name from
oldcompanyExchange to a more generic name like corpexchange.oldcompany.com

? - 2 Then backup the exchange server data

? - 3 Then remove the exchange application from the exchange server.

? - 4 Then remove the exchange server from the oldcompany.com domain.

? - 5 when the newcompany.com domain is ready... join the exchange server
into the newcompany.com domain

? - 6 Then Reinstall Exchange Application on the exchange joined to the
newcompany.com domain.

? - 7 Restore the Exchange Server Data to the newcompany.com exchange
server in the new domian.

? - 7 Verify that everybody has an email alias address for the
oldcompany.com domain address and the primary smtp address is for the
newcompany.com domain address

???? done?

 

[Oli Restorick [MVP]]

Domain rename is only supported on Windows Server 2003. In addition, I
believe you're stuck if you have Exchange 2000 or 2003 in the environment
(but double-check on that). Even then, it's not something you'd do unless
you had no alternative.

I would ask in the Exchange groups for an Exchange-specific answer. This
complicates things no end.

I would also argue that a domain migration, rather than uninstalling and
reinstalling everything would be the way to go.

If you're using UPN names only, you don't need to do any of that. You can
add an alternate UPN suffix. Perhaps that would be sufficient.

Either way, you're looking at a lot of downtime and, if you choose to do a
migration, some extra server purchases.

Oli

 

[Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]]

Our Company Name is changing. And they have asked me to Chang the
Name of our Windows 2000 Domain Name.

Specifically they want our logins to chang from
(e-mail address removed) to (e-mail address removed) . And email to
change from (e-mail address removed) to (e-mail address removed)

That doesn't mean you need to change your AD domain name - note that you can
only rename an AD domain name in W2003, and even then, not when Exchange is
involved. And you can't rename an Exchange server at all.

If you just want to change the Internet domain name used for e-mail, that's
pretty simple, and doesn't involve changing anything in AD. See
http://www.msexchange.org/tutorials/MF010.html - it explains how to host
multiple domain names in Exchange in your recipient policy/policies - I
suggest that you leave the old domain in your policy, and just add the new
one & make it the default. That way, every mailbox can have an address on
each domain, and will receive mail sent to the old one, but will always send
as the new one.

 

[Tom Celica]

Thanks for Refreshing my memory about UPN's. UPN's will meet our goal. You
just saved me a long weekend outage

Thank You very Much !
-Tom [MCP]