We have a web server (serverA) that is giving us some trouble. It is
running Windows 2000 Server and is joined to a domain. We used the
bootable VMWare CD and extracted an image of the computer that has
been giving us trouble. Our plan is to experiment with a fix for this
machine on the VM, so that we don't cause more trouble with the live
machine during maintenance. We copied that image to another machine
running VMWare player then removed the network connection and the VM
(still named serverA) will boot up fine. Our problem is that we need
to get this machine on the network without affecting the original
machine (the one we got this image from).
My question has a few parts:
While this VM computer is running while off the network, if we were to
rename this computer to serverB and change the IP address, when we
reconnect it to the network, will we then be able to join it to the
domain, or should I create a computer account with the new computer's
name (serverB) in AD Users and Computers before introducing it to the
network?
Will there be some sort of cached information that will cause a
problem with serverA's computer account?
Any help or ideas would be most welcome
Paul