How to Change a Server Name Post-Deployment in MOSS 2007 & WSS 3.0

A new and really cool feature in MOSS 2007 and WSS 3.0 that my team here at Vorsite and I are very happy about is that now you can quickly and easily change the name of a server running MOSS or WSS 3.0 after installation has taken place and site collections have been created. Before with SPS 2003 it was a near impossible challenge but now in MOSS you can use a nifty stsadm.exe command to do most of the heavy lifting.

Here are the steps to do this in MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0:

First: Change each alternate access mapping for your MOSS/WSS deployment in Central Administration

1. Open Central Administration
    
2. Click on the “Operations” Tab
    
3. Click on the “Alternate access mappings” link under the “Global Configuration” heading
    
4. Modify each mapping item to reflect your newly chosen server name, making sure to keep port numbers the same (this also include the mapping for Central Administration, don’t worry it's cool)
    

Second: Use stsadm.exe to invoke the “renameserver” command option

1. Open a command prompt window and navigate to the folder where stsadm.exe sits. Normally “C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\BIN”.
    
2. Use the renameserver command as follows, replacing <newname> and <oldname> with the new and old names of your server:
   
   stsadm -o renameserver -newservername <newname> -oldservername <oldname>

Third: Rename your Server via Change Name Operation in Windows Server 2003

1. Now the last step is to simply right click on My Computer
2. Open “Properties”
3. Click on “Computer Name” tab
4. Click “Change” button
5. Input your new server name and reboot the server

Now your server is renamed and all MOSS/WSS web applications and site collections should work perfectly fine.