Domain name change - help please!

[Paul Dussault]

Greetings,

We have about a hundred WinXP Pro clients on an departmental NT 4 domain.
(All user profiles are local and tied to the domain name. They're not admin
of their machines; just user accounts.)

We were told recently that, due to internal reorganization, we must change
the domain name. By next week.
We've never done such a thing - it goes without saying that we're a bit
anxious.

So we would like to know what to do in order to make sure that each user
profile will remain intact and be available after the change, as if nothing
has happened.

Has somebody out there ever done it?
With what kind of results?
What are the caveats?
Are they any special procedures to perform beforehand ?

Any help would be greatly appreciated,

Many thanks

Paul Dussault, MCP

[Malke]

Paul Dussault wrote:

> Greetings,
>
> We have about a hundred WinXP Pro clients on an departmental NT 4
> domain. (All user profiles are local and tied to the domain name.
> They're not admin of their machines; just user accounts.)
>
> We were told recently that, due to internal reorganization, we must
> change
> the domain name. By next week.
> We've never done such a thing - it goes without saying that we're a
> bit anxious.
>
> So we would like to know what to do in order to make sure that each
> user profile will remain intact and be available after the change, as
> if nothing has happened.
>
> Has somebody out there ever done it?
> With what kind of results?
> What are the caveats?
> Are they any special procedures to perform beforehand ?
>
> Any help would be greatly appreciated,
>
> Many thanks
>
> Paul Dussault, MCP

And you don't have a sysadmin in-house with 100 machines? Not a Good
Thing. Frankly, the smartest thing you could do would be to call up a
local shop specializing in networks and have them do it for you. If you
don't want to do this, then call Microsoft Server Tech Support and pay
the $245 to get help how to do it right. The techs on call there are
excellent. If you don't want to do either of these things, then spend a
*lot* of time reading in the MS knowledge base or get an NT
administration book - Mark Minasi writes great Windows books. Maybe
someone else can give you a simple answer, but I think administering
100+ machines is not simple. Whatever you do, I hope you have a solid
backup strategy in place.

Good luck,

Malke
--
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
"Don't Panic!"
remove 3's to reply

[Michael Giorgio - MS MVP]

Here is a good place to start:
Renaming a Domain: Process and Side Effects
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q178/0/09.asp

"Paul Dussault" > wrote in message
> Greetings,
>
> We have about a hundred WinXP Pro clients on an departmental NT 4
domain.
> (All user profiles are local and tied to the domain name. They're not
admin
> of their machines; just user accounts.)
>
> We were told recently that, due to internal reorganization, we must
change
> the domain name. By next week.
> We've never done such a thing - it goes without saying that we're a
bit
> anxious.
>
> So we would like to know what to do in order to make sure that each
user
> profile will remain intact and be available after the change, as if
nothing
> has happened.
>
> Has somebody out there ever done it?
> With what kind of results?
> What are the caveats?
> Are they any special procedures to perform beforehand ?
>
> Any help would be greatly appreciated,
>
> Many thanks
>
> Paul Dussault, MCP
>
>
>
>

[Paul Dussault]

Thank you both for your answers.

For those interested, the domain name change didn't affect any user profile.

I had performed a test on a smaller similar network beforehand, all went
pretty well except for a few dynamic Web sites hosted on the server, that
stopped responding. Maybe it has something to do with the IUSR and the IWAM
accounts. Once their settings were manually reconfigured, everything was ok.

So the exact same thing happened for the department-wide domain name change.
We shut down the main services on the PDC, changed the domain name, and made
each of the client workstation join the new domain. All worked perfectly,
except that I had to manually restore the settings for a few data-driven Web
sites and Web apps.

We also found this paper helpful:
http://www.winntmag.com/Articles/index.cfm?articleid=4784&pg=1


Paul Dussault, MCP

[Michael Giorgio - MS MVP]

As well it shouldn't have affected any profiles since the
SID did not change. :-)

"Paul Dussault" > wrote in message
> Thank you both for your answers.
>
> For those interested, the domain name change didn't affect any user
profile.

[Paul Dussault]

Thank you both for your answers.

For those interested, the domain name change didn't affect any user profile.

I had performed a test on a smaller similar network beforehand, all went
pretty well except for a few dynamic Web sites hosted on the server, that
stopped responding. Maybe it has something to do with the IUSR and the IWAM
accounts. Once their settings were manually reconfigured, everything was ok.

So the exact same thing happened for the department-wide domain name change.
We shut down the main services on the PDC, changed the domain name, and made
each of the client workstation join the new domain. All worked perfectly,
except that I had to manually restore the settings for a few data-driven Web
sites and Web apps.

We also found this paper helpful:
http://www.winntmag.com/Articles/index.cfm?articleid=4784&pg=1


Paul Dussault, MCP

[Michael Giorgio - MS MVP]

As well it shouldn't have affected any profiles since the
SID did not change. :-)

"Paul Dussault" > wrote in message
> Thank you both for your answers.
>
> For those interested, the domain name change didn't affect any user
profile.

[Paul Dussault]

Thank you both for your answers.

For those interested, the domain name change didn't affect any user profile.

I had performed a test on a smaller similar network beforehand, all went
pretty well except for a few dynamic Web sites hosted on the server, that
stopped responding. Maybe it has something to do with the IUSR and the IWAM
accounts. Once their settings were manually reconfigured, everything was ok.

So the exact same thing happened for the department-wide domain name change.
We shut down the main services on the PDC, changed the domain name, and made
each of the client workstation join the new domain. All worked perfectly,
except that I had to manually restore the settings for a few data-driven Web
sites and Web apps.

We also found this paper helpful:
http://www.winntmag.com/Articles/index.cfm?articleid=4784&pg=1


Paul Dussault, MCP

[Michael Giorgio - MS MVP]

As well it shouldn't have affected any profiles since the
SID did not change. :-)

"Paul Dussault" > wrote in message
> Thank you both for your answers.
>
> For those interested, the domain name change didn't affect any user
profile.

[Paul Dussault]

Thank you both for your answers.

For those interested, the domain name change didn't affect any user profile.

I had performed a test on a smaller similar network beforehand, all went
pretty well except for a few dynamic Web sites hosted on the server, that
stopped responding. Maybe it has something to do with the IUSR and the IWAM
accounts. Once their settings were manually reconfigured, everything was ok.

So the exact same thing happened for the department-wide domain name change.
We shut down the main services on the PDC, changed the domain name, and made
each of the client workstation join the new domain. All worked perfectly,
except that I had to manually restore the settings for a few data-driven Web
sites and Web apps.

We also found this paper helpful:
http://www.winntmag.com/Articles/index.cfm?articleid=4784&pg=1


Paul Dussault, MCP

[Michael Giorgio - MS MVP]

As well it shouldn't have affected any profiles since the
SID did not change. :-)

"Paul Dussault" > wrote in message
> Thank you both for your answers.
>
> For those interested, the domain name change didn't affect any user
profile.