Renaming a SQL Server

We use virtual machines in-house to test different software configurations. Some of these servers run SQL and a part of that process is renaming the servers. SQL doesn’t like this because it stores its own name internally. Sometimes stored procedures fail, scripts may not work right and SQL Agent jobs may freak out. However, there’s a process for renaming that works pretty well.

On the SQL Server, you can retrieve the internally stored name by running the query:

SELECT @@SERVERNAME AS 'Server Name'

If the instance of SQL you’re working with is the default instance, you can change the servername using the following script:

sp_dropserver OLD_NAME

GO

sp_addserver NEW_NAME, local

GO

If the instance you’re working with is not the default instance, use the script:

sp_dropserver 'OLD_NAME\instancename'
GO
sp_addserver 'OLD_NAME\instancename', local
GO

Note that you can’t change the instance name using this process. 

The information here was pulled from Microsoft Technet at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms143799.aspx