Workstation Renaming locally and within Domain

[superred]

Hello All,

I have been given the task up changing 50 computer names within a domain in order to come into line with a naming convention plan.
All the workstations are w2k and currently log into a domain.
Some of the laptops are setup for office and home use and have profiles set-up for the domain and offline.
I want to be able to change all workstation names on 50 machines and be happy in my mind that all user profiles will automatically reflect this new computer name.
Obviously changing a domain workstation on a domain requires the Administrator details, I have these.
Has anyone had to do this or know anything that might help me?

Kind Regards

 

[wolluf]

From the win2k Pro Help (search for 'rename a computer'):

To rename a computer

Open System in Control Panel.
On the Network Identification tab, click Properties.
In Computer name, type a new name for the computer, and then click OK.
If the computer is a member of a domain, you will be prompted to provide a user name and user password to rename the computer in the domain.

Notes

You must be logged on as an administrator to the local computer to change the computer name.
To open a Control Panel item, click Start, point to Settings, click Control Panel, and then double-click the appropriate icon.
A computer joining a Windows 2000 domain must use the name created for it by the network administrator, unless you have a user name and password with rights to create computer accounts.
If you supplied a valid user name and password for a secure Windows 2000 domain, the domain membership will be automatically updated with the new computer name.
It is recommended that you use computer names that are 15 characters or less. If your computer has TCP/IP networking protocol installed, the computer name can be up to 63 characters long but should only contain the numbers 0-9, the letters A-Z and a-z, and hyphens. You may use other characters, but doing so may prevent other users from finding your computer on the network. If your network is using the Microsoft DNS server, you can use any characters except periods. If other networking protocols are installed without TCP/IP, the name is limited to 15 characters.
If you specify a computer name longer than 15 characters and you want longer names to be recognized by the Active Directory domain, the domain administrator must enable registration of DNS names that are 16 bytes or longer.
If your computer is a member of a workgroup, no networking is installed, or TCP/IP is not installed, the computer name cannot be more than 15 characters, and the characters must all be uppercase.

 

[Scotsdude]

as far as I'm aware, renaming the clints shouldn't affect the profiles in any way at all. Scotsdude
Help us help you - let us know when our insane scribblings help!!

 

[superred]

Many thanks guys for your kind efforts.
I was really worried about other offline accounts using the old machine name not working once the changes were made.
Are there any good packages that could change the 50 machines via a script or answer file?

 

[wolluf]

There's a command lline utility, netdom - copied from

http://www.foxpop.ndirect.co.uk/pc/network_01.htm:-

'You have to install the Support Tools package from the Windows install CD at [CD-Rom:]\Support\Tools\Setup.exe. Then the following command can be used: netdom renamecomputer [old name] /NewName:[new name] . As far as I know, there is no way to change the workgroup name and/or the computer name in a workgroup from a command line, and even if you change it by hand, your machine has to be rebooted.'

You could use this with something like psexec (part of pstools, freeware from

http://www.sysinternals.com),

which will let you run jobs on remote machines.
HTH