We are in the test process of changing our Windows 2003 network's domain name. We do not use Exchange. So far the test has gone well. I have a couple of questions about the domain workstations. 1) Do the workstations need to be powered on? 2) Logged in? 3) Logged in as an administrator? We setup a virtual land for the test and all the virtual machines were on and updated fine. All VMs were made from imaged production machines. When I connected a spare workstation to the VM network it did not update, so I rejioned it manually. I am not sure if it didn't update because it was connected to the VM network or because it was not connected until after I changed the domain name. Any help will be appreciated. Thanks, John John Kenney The Haven Group

Hello, if the rename with the DCs is ready restart the workstations twice. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsserver/bb405948.aspx http://www.msexchange.org/tutorials/Domain-Rename.htmlBest regards Meinolf Weber MVP, MCP, MCTS Microsoft MVP - Directory Services My Blog: http://msmvps.com/blogs/mweber/ Disclaimer: This posting is provided AS IS with no warranties or guarantees and confers no rights.

Meinolf, Thank you for your quick responce. So, I should have the workstations logged in during the domain name change? JohnJohn Kenney The Haven Group

Hello, they will change the settings either during reboot or startup. If you rename the domain there is no interaction with all domain members, that's the reason for the restart of them. Just follow the documentation.Best regards Meinolf Weber MVP, MCP, MCTS Microsoft MVP - Directory Services My Blog: http://msmvps.com/blogs/mweber/ Disclaimer: This posting is provided AS IS with no warranties or guarantees and confers no rights.

Thank you for your reply. I have tested it again and come to the same issue. In my tests, if a workstation is not powered on and logged in, it does not log into the new domain name. Repeated reboots have no affect. It logs in as if it is disconnected from the network. JohnJohn Kenney The Haven Group

Hi, It seems that your testing environment is not working normally. I agree with Meinolf that you dont need to power your workstations on when renaming domain. I would like to suggest you create a new and clean virtual test lab and follow the following Microsoft articles to perform this domain renaming. Domain Rename Technical Reference http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc786120(v=WS.10).aspx How to rename a domain http://support.microsoft.com/kb/169741 Regards, Arthur Li TechNet Subscriber Support If you are TechNet Subscription user and have any feedback on our support quality, please send your feedback here.Arthur Li TechNet Community Support

Hi, I would like to confirm what is the current situation? If there is anything that I can do for you, please do not hesitate to let me know, and I will be happy to help. Regards, Arthur Li TechNet Subscriber Support If you are TechNet Subscription user and have any feedback on our support quality, please send your feedback here.Arthur Li TechNet Community Support

My problem continues. I have re-imaged the virtual network, created virtual workstations and tested that workstations could login and were members of the domain. I shut down one workstation and left the other up. Same with member servers. I went through the rename process without errors. same with the gpfixup. Any machine that was running while the update took place moved to the new domain name without error. Any machine that was shut down logs into the cached domain name. This does not change after multiple re-boots / re-starts. The event logs state that the machine cannot find the domain controller (old domain). What am I missing?? Thanks, JohnJohn Kenney The Haven Group

I recreated the entire virtual network scratch. I followed the steps to a t and everything worked. I repeated the process and it worked. I dont know what was wrong or what I did wrong but now I can repeat the process. I am going to try it again before I do it live. Thanks to all how offered help! JohnJohn Kenney The Haven Group