1. Open a Command Prompt as an administrator: On the Start menu, right-click Command Prompt, and then click Run as administrator. If the User Account Control dialog box appears, provide Domain Admins credentials, if required, and then click Continue.

  2. At the command prompt, type the following command to add the new domain controller name, and then press ENTER:

    netdom computername <CurrentComputerName> /add:<NewComputerName>

     

    ValueDescription

    netdom computername

    Manages the primary and alternate names for a computer.

    <CurrentComputerName>

    The current, or primary, fully qualified DNS name of the computer that you are renaming.

    /add:

    Specifies that a new alternate DNS name should be added.

    <NewComputerName>

    The new fully qualified DNS name for the computer that you are renaming.

  3. Type the following command to designate the new name as the primary computer name, and then press ENTER:

    netdom computername <CurrentComputerName> /makeprimary:<NewComputerName>

     

    ValueDescription

    netdom computername

    Manages the primary and alternate names for a computer.

    <CurrentComputerName>

    The current, or primary, fully qualified domain name (FQDN)of the computer that you are renaming.

    /makeprimary:

    Specifies that an existing alternate name should be made into the primary name.

    <NewComputerName>

    The new name for the computer. The NewComputerName must be a FQDN. The primary DNS suffix that is specified in the FQDN for NewComputerName must be the same as the primary DNS suffix of CurrentComputerName, or it must match the DNS name of the Active Directory domain that is hosted by this domain controller, or it must be contained in the list of allowed DNS suffixes that is specified in the msDS-AllowedDNSSuffixes attribute of the domainDns object.

  4. Restart the computer.

  5. After the computer restarts, open a Command Prompt.

  6. At the command prompt, type the following command to remove the old domain controller name, and then press ENTER:

    netdom computername <NewComputerName> /remove:<OldComputerName>

     

    ValueDescription

    netdom computername

    Manages the primary and alternate names for a computer.

    <NewComputerName>

    The new FQDN that you added for the computer in step 2.

    /remove:

    Specifies that an existing alternate name should be removed.

    <OldComputerName>

    The old FQDN of the renamed computer.