I am re purposing old PCs that have long been replaced but are sitting on the bench. Here's the scenario.
Let's say I have a benched PC named "XXX-420-S01". This PC exists in an OU entitled "420". I boot the PC and try to login. Sometimes I will get a trust issue since the name has been taken over by the real "XXX-420-S01" that replaced it. I rejoin the domain (join pseudo-workgroup then rejoin under the same name) and get in (yes, I may have to fix the real "XXX-420-S01" but I don't care about that). I check for updates which are managed by WSUS and all is well.
I rename the PC to "XXX-200-S01". I'm still on the domain. AD is not smart enough to know the naming convention so "XXX-200-S01" is still in the "420" OU. I check for updates on WSUS and all is usually well.
Now I move the PC to the "200" OU and WSUS errors out. It can't check for updates and complains.
The way to fix this is as follows.
Let's say "XXX-200-S99" is already in the "200" OU and is working fine. I will name the new PC "XXX-200-S99" (essentially taking over this name). I will then check for updates on WSUS which works fine for obvious reasons. I then rename the PC to the desired name "XXX-200-S01" and check for updates again and it works fine. I then go to the "XXX-200-S99" machine and rejoin the domain. Now both "XXX-200-S99" and "XXX-200-S01" are in the "200" OU and play nice with WSUS.
What is all this funky jumping through hoops doing?
I do not have access to the AD servers since they are managed by another group but I believe they are Server 2008. The workstations are Win7.