How to change SID in Windows Server 2008 R2

How to change SID on Windows Server 2008 R2
 

Most of the tech guys usually work on VMware and some other Virtual platforms and usually install the same OS to create multiple copies. You can do this copy by two methods.

1.      By cloning the virtual machine

2.      By Changing the SID of the OS so that it will not conflict.

In previous version of Windows like 2003 we usually use NewSID.exe that is recommended by Microsoft to changing the SID. But if you will use this NewSID.exe with windows server 2008 it will work but if you will use this for Windows Server 2008 R2 then your OS will be crashed and will be rebooted in recovery mode every time you restart.

In this blog i will describe you how to change SID on Windows Server 2008 R2.
The method is to use sysprep. 

First, click on  Start->Run, type sysprep and press OK.

This will open sysprep folder which is located in c:\Windows\System32. Open sysprep application.

This will open System Preparation Tool 3.14 window. As a System Cleanup Action select Enter System Out-of-Box Experience (OOBE).

Important: select Generalize if you want to change SID, it’s not selected by default.

As Shutdown Options select Reboot.

It will take some time for sysprep to finish.

After rebooting you will have to enter some data, like Country or region, Time and currency and Keyboard input.

Also, you will have to accept EULA. After booting, in Server Manager you’ll see that everything is changed, if you had some settings that you had configured earlier that will be changed as you have some new OS.

You can check the SID if you want to check
Also you can use the PsGetSid that is very small utility to check the SID