Renaming Exchange Server

[grkbar]

Hey guys and gals,
I am trying to renaming our M/S exchange server but do not want to have to completely re-build it as some other people have told me. I was informed that to re-name you must re-build. this will create a lot of down time for my end-users and was trying to find another way to go about this. Does anyone know an easier and less costly way to rename a M/S exchange server?

 

[Hefemeister]

Is it just an Exchange server or is it also the domain controller? What is the purpose of renaming the server?

 

[grkbar]

its just an exchange server, no DC, but in a small nut shell, the name of the server isn't appropriate for our users to type in to access the exchange server

 

[Hefemeister]

what version of exchange are you running? That is funny it has an inappropriate name.

 

[grkbar]

2003, its not like vulgar, but not appropriate for the lawyers that will be accessing it. lol

 

[mikesgroovin]

The version of exchange matters especially from 2000 to 2003. There are tools to do this relatively easily with 2003 and have seen them used but I've personally never used them. I did, however, rename a 2000 server but it only served less than 50 users. How many users are you hosting on this exchange server?

 

[Dr.House]

Well part of your rename is going to involve going into Active Directory and changing some objects (the server in the Servers OU), there isn't much documentation on directly renaming an exchange domain (or at least not that I could find, there is a LOT of documentation on renaming an entire AD Domain)
I think at worst there will be some entry in your sub-domain setups or IIS server linking to the exchange server that you can edit and then rename the actual physical server name and let Active Directory propagate it.

****** I have never been asked to do this in my days as a sys-admin and any MS documentation I have on domain renames is falling short, don't hold me accountable if I missed something! **********