Background
On Windows Home Server 2011 and Windows Storage Server 2011 R2 Essentials, the default UI in computer management for changing work group name is grayed out. This wiki aims to provide you PowerShell scripts to change the workgroup name on Windows Home Server 2011 and Windows Storage Server 2011 R2 Essentials. Please note, Windows Storage Server 2011 R2 Essentials supports domain join, if you want to join your Windows Storage Server 2011 R2 Essentials to a domain, please use the “Domain” settings page in dashboard. This PowerShell scripts only applies to the servers which are not part of a domain, if your server already joined a domain, please DO NOT use this script.
To change workgroup
$sysinfo = Get-WmiObject Win32_ComputerSystem $sysinfo.JoinDomainOrWorkgroup("workgroupname")
Possible Error handling
If the return value of above scripts aren’t equals to 0, it means the change isn’t successful and most probably it’s because the name provided is invalid, try remove the special characters and spaces then try again.
Can you elaborate more on how the WHS 2011 default installation of Active Directory Certificate Services role is impacted by this method of name change? This was the previous and far more complex method I've used for changing the workgroup name: www.homeserverland.com/.../index.php (post 8)
As Dale DU-IT notes, this procedure doesn't cover the need to address the configuration of AD Certificate Services, which means that it will almost certainly break a WHS 2011 installation.
A simpler method is to set the Workgroup name during installation using the workaround described in this thread:
social.microsoft.com/.../9562b42c-a252-4c96-8e3d-c2ebbef35275
It worked for me and was easy to do.
Hi Dale and Geo, this will have no impact on AD cert service.
Will this work to change the computer name? I want to replace a running WHS V1 system with a WHS 2011 system.