Change Domain Name in AD

Hi folks, first post so be gentle :-)

(Network names have been changed to protect the innocent!)

We are running virtual machines and have a domain that is called test1 whereas it should be part of a larger network called TEST1.net.blah.local

Now it is running with users groups etc and we had to add a suffix onto each users machine for them to equal the proper name but here and there we get problems. It is also a DNS server and the dns shows a set up for TEST1 and for TEST1.net.blah.local

We would obviously like to do away with the short TEST1 in the DNS and have everything with the full name.

Do we have to demote the DC and start from fresh or is it possible to set up another virtual machine and have people redirect to that once it is up and running?

Does that even make sense!! Hope so :-)

I think that you can rerun the wizard to change the external/public facing domainname at anytime later again. But you can not change the internal AD DS Domainname after install on SBSe domains. Rendom.exe (the tool for renaming in W2K3) can only be used if you're in W2K3 functional levels on both domain and forest.

FunkyMoose,
What domain functional level are you running at serer 2003 or server 2008 ?
If you are running windows server 2008 or 2008 R2, this is a pretty stright forward process.

As Einstein mention, you can use this instructions to rename your domain.
technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc794883(WS.10).aspx