Renaming a cloned VM

Hey all,
I have kind of a strange situation. I have a physical server that hosts our financial tracking software. I'm in the process of upgrading the software and decided to use our virtualization resources to test the upgrade procedure. So I cloned the Server 2003 machine, shut down the physcial and powerd up the clone. Did my testing with the upgrade and all that. Thing is, now I'd like to keep this VM up and bring up my production server, so I can compare the two. Thing is, if I rename the VM in AD, it'll rename the account of the physical machine. I guess I need a way to rename a machine but rather than have it change it's AD registration, it would create a new registration. That make sense? Thanks.

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undomiel

You could disjoin it from the domain, rename it, and then rejoin it to the domain.

RTmarc

I'd run NewSid on the cloned VM and rename it that way. Reset the AD account on the physical box and you should be set.

finkle636

JayrodEF wrote: »

Hey all,
I have kind of a strange situation. I have a physical server that hosts our financial tracking software. I'm in the process of upgrading the software and decided to use our virtualization resources to test the upgrade procedure. So I cloned the Server 2003 machine, shut down the physcial and powerd up the clone. Did my testing with the upgrade and all that. Thing is, now I'd like to keep this VM up and bring up my production server, so I can compare the two. Thing is, if I rename the VM in AD, it'll rename the account of the physical machine. I guess I need a way to rename a machine but rather than have it change it's AD registration, it would create a new registration. That make sense? Thanks.

Having done this, what you need to do is log onto the vm as a local admin, disable the lan adapter in the VM, rename the machine in system properties AND drop it to a workgroup by leaving the "enter username and password to remove from domain" dialog prompt box blank when it appears and clicking OK (or was it cancel?) AT THE SAME TIME.

Restart it into the workgroup. Sysprep the VM to regenerate the SID (and enter an new product key as this is technically another machine). Then re enable the network adapter and join it to the domain with its new SID and machine name.

undomiel

finkle636 wrote: »

Having done this, what you need to do is log onto the vm as a local admin, disable the lan adapter in the VM, rename the machine in system properties AND drop it to a workgroup by leaving the "enter username and password to remove from domain" dialog prompt box blank when it appears and clicking OK (or was it cancel?) AT THE SAME TIME.

Restart it into the workgroup. Sysprep the VM to regenerate the SID (and enter an new product key as this is technically another machine). Then re enable the network adapter and join it to the domain with its new SID and machine name.

Whoops, I was being completely brain dead this morning. That's what I get for not sleeping first. This is the process you're needing. Ignore my babble.

RTmarc

finkle636 wrote: »

Having done this, what you need to do is log onto the vm as a local admin, disable the lan adapter in the VM, rename the machine in system properties AND drop it to a workgroup by leaving the "enter username and password to remove from domain" dialog prompt box blank when it appears and clicking OK (or was it cancel?) AT THE SAME TIME.

Restart it into the workgroup. Sysprep the VM to regenerate the SID (and enter an new product key as this is technically another machine). Then re enable the network adapter and join it to the domain with its new SID and machine name.

You do not have to run Sysprep. This is all you need to use:

NewSID v4.10

JayrodEF

Thanks for all the input guys, I'll have to try those things out on Monday, I'll do a little reading on that NewSID, thanks!

JayrodEF

For anyone who comes across this in the future. I ended up deleting all NICs from my VM, powering it up, using NewSID to change the SID. Rebooted. Removed the system from the domain and joined a workgroup. Rebooted (make sure you have a local admin account setup and you know the PW, I had to create one I knew the PW for before I rebooted). Signed in as a local account, removed my old domain admin profile just for kicks. Added my NICs back and joined the domain. Rebooted and everything works great. Thanks again for all the help folks!