Changing your SQL Server name

Cloning VM machine's is something we usually do, but SQL Server doesn't like it's machine's name to be renamed. Here's a cool one I didn't know of - I used to re-run the setup, it really didn't installed it again, just clean it up. But here's a better way:

sp_dropserver <old_name>
GO

sp_addserver <new_name>, local
GO

Now all we have to do is:

• restart SQL instance



• delete all logins associated with old machine's name



• add them back

There you have it :)