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Adding a cloned NT Member Server to Active Directory

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I have an NT 2003 Standard Server that is part of my Active directory domain. It is not a domain controller. It runs an application that I need to upgrade, but I want to test the upgrades on a test server before applying them to the production machine.

I cloned the NT Server using the Acronis Snap Deploy imaging software. I restored it to an almost identical Server. The only real differences in the servers are their hard drives, the original has 3 SCSI drives in a RAID config, and the test box has 2 SATA drives with no RAID or mirroring.

The test server came up fine. It of course has the same IP and Domain name as the production server. I would like to change the IP and Domain name of the test server so I can actually add it to our network, but I am unsure of how to do that without effecting the production server. Obviously, changing the IP itself wouldn't be that big of a deal, but I am not NT Active Directory savy enough to know where to begin with the domain name issue.

If it was an XP machine, I would simply change it back to being in a workgroup, then change the name, and then add it back to the domain. I don't see a way to do that on the System tab like XP would have. Also, I am unsure if it would have the same SID or how to check that.

Bottom line, I can do the tests without adding it to my network, but it would make the testing easier if I could add it to the network to allow a couple of users to RDP into it.

Does anyone have a link or PDF that would explain how I could change the name and add this back into the AD without effecting the original machine?

I appreciate any help you could give me.

Thanks.

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 Hello Will,

Thank you for posting. I am happy to answer your question.

In order to change the name of a test server cloned from a production server, you have to remove the server from domain (adding it to the workgroup) and add it to the domain again. Here is the tecnet article for this operation.

To be sure your systems and applications on them do not conflict, you have to run Sysprep on the test server. Note that cloning the machine not prepared with Sysprep can cause problems for certain applications like Windows Server Update Services (WSUS). Also note that Sysprep will not change the SID of the computer with applications installed.

Answering your second question, you can check the SID of your machine with the Sysinternals PsGetSid. However it is not necessary to change the SID of the cloned machine. As Mark Russinovich describes in his blog, duplicated SIDs have no influence on the workgroup or domain environment and can be left intact.

Let me know if you have additional questions.

Thank you.