Q. How do I rename a computer and assign it to a domain in Windows Server Core?

A. Because Server Core doesn't have a Control Panel System applet or Microsoft Management Console (MMC) Server Manager, you have to use the old-fashioned command-line method—Netdom—to rename a computer and assign it to a domain.

The Hostname command will show the computer's current name. Then you can use the following command to change the name:

WindowsSystem32>netdom renamecomputer %computername% /NewName:newcomputername

The output would be:

This operation will rename the computer OLDCOMPUTERNAME
to newcomputername.

Certain services, such as the Certificate Authority, rely on a fixed machine
name. If any services of this type are running on OLDCOMPUTERNAME,
then a computer name change would have an adverse impact.

Do you want to proceed (Y or N)?

Press Y then Enter to continue. After pressing Enter, you would receive the following output:

The computer needs to be restarted in order to complete the operation.

The command completed successfully.

To assign the computer to a domain, use Netdom again, but this time with the /join switch and the proper credentials for assigning a computer to a domain. The command would look like this:

netdom join %computername% /domain: /userd:administrator /passwordd:*

The output would be:

Type the password associated with the domain user:

The computer needs to be restarted in order to complete the operation.

The command completed successfully.