From: John Cuccia 

MS claims (in the Administrator's Companion) that it can be done, but I've
never tried.

Here's what the book says:

1. Logon to the DC to be renamed with an account with Domain or Enterprise
Admin rights.

2. Open a command windows

3. Add a new name to the machine using netdom:
        netdom computername  /add:

4. Make the new name the primary one using netdom:
        netdom computername  /makeprimary:

5. Restart

6. Remove the original name:
        netdom computername  /remove:currentname


So if I read it correctly, in Richard's case it should look like

        netdom computername xbaabra /add:baabra
        netdom computername xbaabra /makeprimary:baabra
        reboot
        netdom computername baabra /remove:xbaabra

Although he won't be able to do this if he keeps his old NT4 BDC around
until he getst the Acad license manager moved.

On Tue, 01 Mar 2005 08:43:36 -0800, Chris  wrote:

>Correct me if I'm wrong, but once a machine is a domain controller, it's
>hostname can't be changes unless it is demoted.
>
>/Chris
>
>
>Richard B. wrote:
>> On Mon, 28 Feb 2005 18:01:25 -0600, John Cuccia 
>> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>You shouldn't have to take the old machine off-line immediately if you
>>>use a 180-day eval version of the software.
>>
>>
>> I have a 2003 license around here somewhere so I won't need to do the
>> eval thing.
>>
>>
>>>If you prefer, you can install NT4 on the new machine, configured as a
>>>BDC, then promote it to PDC, then upgrade it.
>>
>>
>> That sounds like an *excellent* plan.  I'd like to keep the same
>> server name (i.e. "baabra") because I'm sure lots of users have
>> shortcut references to it.  So if I name the new server
"xbaabra," do
>> the upgrade dance, take the old machine offline, and rename the new
>> PDC "baabra" all will be (or should be) well in the garden?
>>
>> - Richard

--- BBBS/NT v4.01 Flag-5