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If you rename your DC by renaming a Domain Controller in the normal way you would rename a computer (using the System > Rename this PC gui), you didn’t do it right and your metadata is likely irreversibly damaged. However, I have seen success in this situation when multiple DC’s exist by demoting a re-promoting the DC. If only a single DC exists I would say its maybe a good idea to follow the below guide as it may get your out of the proverbial but probably not recommended and you may have to rely on backups.  Use the below method carefully to rename your DC in a right way and for a smooth migration Step 1: Getting ready. Open a command prompt. (Windows key+r (run) + cmd) Step 2: Adding an alternate computer name. SYNTAX : netdom computername <currentDC FQDN> / add:<newDCName FQDN> In the command prompt, type (minus quotes) “netdom computername wrongname.domain.local /add:server.domain.local“   This should return with “Added (NAME) as an alternate nam

I had a set of Windows 2008R2 servers today that were having trouble backing up the system state via Windows Server Backup – they would fail with the error “System writer is not found in the backup”. I scoured the ‘net and talked to colleagues, and all of the resolutions I could find involved re-registering components, re-securing things in the Cryptography Service (prompted by CAPI or CryptSvc errors in the event log), setting ownership on WinSXS folders, etc. I did not have any such errors in my logs to indicate a permissions issue – in fact, I saw no errors at all (usually good – not so much when something is broken!). However, every time I ran “vssadmin list writers”, indeed the system writer was missing. After taking a procmon, I noticed that the last thing that was searched were some setupapi.ev* files in \Windows\Inf: I decided, on a whim, to replace these files with files from another server I had that was working – I stopped the VSS and CryptSvc services (th