Hi all; I've built a Server 2008 primary domain controller as a learning experience. But I have 2 issues. First; I would like to change the domain that the controller is controlling. I suspect that I will have to completely rebuild the machine. Second: I'm using a XP pro client to connect to the domain rescources. The XP machine joined the domain ok and after logging into the domain on the client computer I was able to connect to domain rescources. However after a period of time the XP machine no longer has access to the domain rescources and I have to reboot the client machine to gain access to the domain rescources. At this point domain rescources are a shared folder on the controller and a network printer that is installed to the controller and shared. I appreciate all and any comments. W

Hi, What do you want to do exactly ? change the domain controller machine ? or rename the domain name ? _____________________________Tarek Majdalani MVP -- ISA Firewalls Website : http://www.elmajdal.net/Win2k8

Thank you for your reply. Guess I could have been more specific on that one. Currently machine nameis: Server The domain is: XXX I want to leave the machine name the same and change the domain name to yyy.net I know that on the client machine I'll have to join it to the new domain and setup the user again on the new domain. Thanks again.

Hi again, You can use the rendom.exe tool which available with Windows Server 2008. Read this article to know how to rename the domain name : http://www.petri.co.il/windows_2003_domain_rename.htm and this thread discussing domain rename : http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=3092475&SiteID=17 _____________________________Tarek Majdalani MVP -- ISA Firewalls Website : http://www.elmajdal.net/Win2k8

Hi, I agree with Tarek Majdalani. You can use Rendom.exe tool to rename domain name. More information about Rendom, please refer to: Domain rename tools http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsserver/bb405948.aspx Webcasts on domain rename http://support.microsoft.com/kb/819145/ As for the Windows XP client fails to access shared folder and printer on the DC, could you please let me know the exact symptom? Can you ping the domain controller by IP and by name when this issue happens? First of all, please check if you assign the corresponding permissions to the user logging into Windows XP machine. To successfully access shared folder and printer, please browse to the folder or printer in Windows Explorer, rightclick the folder or printer, and then click Properties. Click share tab and assign permissions, such as Full Control, Modify, Read, and/or Write, to specific users; Click the Security tab, and assign permissions, such as Full Control, Modify, Read, and/or Write, to specific users (for testing purpose, you can choose full control). Please note to complete the above steps, you must be the owner or have been granted permission to do so by the owner. After doing these, if this issue still persists, please check if you can access shared folder and printer locally by inputting UNC path in RUN (for example: \\DCname\shared folder) and let me know the result. Hope this helps. Morgan

Hi there; Thanks for your reply. The XP client has no problem accessing the server rescources when it first logs on, so the permissions are properly set. When the client loses the ability to connect to domain rescources I can ping both the IP and name of the server that the rescources are on. Enterring \\DCname\Share in the run box does not help either because after a few minutes a password prompt dialog comes up and when I enter the necessary credentials I'm told that those credentials have already been tried. If I reboot the client machine and log in again then everything is fine and I have full access to the domain rescources. W

Yep this is mentioned in the link i refered it to you in my previous post. _____________________________Tarek Majdalani MVP -- ISA Firewalls Website : http://www.elmajdal.net/Win2k8