Hi all,
Testing a new server before rolling it out for a client's office, and I couldn't join any of the XP boxes to the domain.
I get this message on the client I am trying to join to the domain:

The following error occurred attempting to join the domain "<mydomain>":
The specified server cannot perform the requested function.

Which after hair tearing ang googling, I think is because I must have typed domainname.com when setting up the domain instead of doaminname.local
(In the AD SnapIn, the domain name is domain.com when I believe it should be domain.local, correct?)
I'm not linking this to any FQDNs.

Is this changeable without uninstalling/reinstalling Active Directory?
There are only 6 users so it's not the end of the world, but if I can change it would be easier.
Also I need to know how this would affect the DNS server, which currently has a simply forward lookup zone.
What would I need to do on the DNS server?

Many thanks all.
I'm presuming this is causing the error I'm seeing.
It's strange, since when I enter the domain name and try to connect, it pops up a username & password box, as normal.
Then it does nothing for 3 or 4 minutes and then returns the error message above.
Meanwhile, it has indeed created a machine account in the AD but it's already disabled (red cross through it) and the PC is still not joined to the domain.
If I enter a username in that box which doesn't have Domain Admin rights, it thinks about it for the same length of time and returns the very same error message but in that instance there isn't an already disabled machine account in the AD.

Any ideas? Does this leap out to anyone as being something other than the error I describe above?

Many thanks all.

Don't try and rename it, just demote it and restart. Your alternative would be a migration that would take at least 10 times as much effort.

But you don't have to use .local, you can make up whatever you like, and .com is often used for internal domains without major hassle, so there is no obvious reason why you need to rename the domain.

If you can ping servername and servername.domainname.com then that should be enough. Make sure the firewall is switched off on the server, and that the clocks on both client and server are no more than 5 minutes adrift from each other.

I'm not sure what difference the accounts you use make, unless I am mistaken by default anyone in the domain users group can add up to 10 computers to a Windows domain.