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Windows versions before 10 asked for the machine name at installation time so that you could set it once and never change it. Windows 10 no longer asks for that so that you might want/need to change the name after installation time.

Is it dangerous to change the machine name after installation and with programs already installed?

I imagine that Windows components and programs might take a dependency on the machine name not changing for some reason.

I'm not tagging this windows-10 because the question is not Windows 10 specific.

boot4life
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4 Answers4

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While Techie007's answer is correct most of the time, its not true all the time.

There are many cases where changing the computer name can cause problems. Changing a computer that is a member of an AD domain, while it is not connected to the domain can cause issues. Issues can occur when restoring backups to a machine after its name has changed. Then there are services and applications that are written poorly and will break if the name of the computer is changed. There are countless other things that can break after a name change, too many to list and describe here. Problems related to permissions are the most common.

However, all of these issues are usually fairly easy to resolve after the fact and should not be considered "dangerous."

Community
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Keltari
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4

Is changing the Windows computer name dangerous?

No, changing the name of a Windows machine is harmless. Nothing within Windows itself is going to care about the computer's name.

The only case where it may matter is in custom scripting (or alike) that checks the computer's name to make decision about what to do. This would be user-created scripting, so you'd know about it (since it's your computer). ;)

Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007
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I had some kind of malware that was preventing me from restoring my computer. I narrowed the problem down to something in the sharing application was the culprit but I couldnt even change the Sharing options. s One suggested remedy was to change the name and get rid of he "home group" I did this and as soon as I changed the name, It was like I had a new laptop. Nothing was lost, no issues with software etc: so if there was an adverse affect I certainly havnt found it yet.

Codefore
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0

Changing the name of a windows client (Win 7, etc.) or a Windows server running SQL 2005 (and presumably later) cause all kinds of problems with SQL. Specifically, I was running SQL 2005 MSDN version on a Windows 7 client and changed the machine name. All kinds of things broke in SQL. I haven't tried it since we've moved to Windows 10 and I haven't tried it with newer versions of SQL. The point is: some software does depend on the Hostname in the software's internal setup.

user1254637
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