Renaming an Azure Windows VM (Managed Disks)

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In Azure, the renaming of resources (such as a VM) isn’t allowed.  That is, you can rename the OS/FQDN name of the VM at any time, but the display name in Azure is locked in at creation time.  If this bugs you, vote up the feature request here: https://feedback.azure.com/forums/216843-virtual-machines/suggestions/6132055-rename-vm

In the meantime, by tweaking a Microsoft provided script we can easily rename a VM by deleting the VM object (keeping all disks, NICs, IPs, etc.) and then recreating the VM using those existing objects.  The whole process should take ~10min (although it will vary based on the number of disks and NICs attached).

The below PowerShell script will work as-is for Windows VMs using managed disks and can easily be tweaked to run with Linux VMs or those using storage accounts.

# Nicole Welch, 10 January 2019

# Rename existing Windows VM in Azure Portal (resource name)

# Based on /en-us/azure/virtual-machines/windows/change-availability-set

Add-AzureRmAccount

# Set variables
$resourceGroup = "Demo"
$oldvmName = "myVM"
$newvmName = "newVM"

# Get the details of the VM to be renamed
$originalVM = Get-AzureRmVM `
-ResourceGroupName $resourceGroup `
-Name $oldvmName

# Remove the original VM
Remove-AzureRmVM -ResourceGroupName $resourceGroup -Name $oldvmName   

# Create the basic configuration for the replacement VM
$newVM = New-AzureRmVMConfig -VMName $newvmName -VMSize $originalVM.HardwareProfile.VmSize

    Set-AzureRmVMOSDisk -VM $newVM -CreateOption Attach -ManagedDiskId $originalVM.StorageProfile.OsDisk.ManagedDisk.Id -Name $originalVM.StorageProfile.OsDisk.Name -Windows

# Add Data Disks
foreach ($disk in $originalVM.StorageProfile.DataDisks) {
Add-AzureRmVMDataDisk -VM $newVM `
-Name $disk.Name `
-ManagedDiskId $disk.ManagedDisk.Id `
-Caching $disk.Caching `
-Lun $disk.Lun `
-DiskSizeInGB $disk.DiskSizeGB `
-CreateOption Attach
}

# Add NIC(s)
foreach ($nic in $originalVM.NetworkProfile.NetworkInterfaces) {
Add-AzureRmVMNetworkInterface `
-VM $newVM `
-Id $nic.Id
}

# Recreate the VM
New-AzureRmVM `
-ResourceGroupName $resourceGroup `
-Location $originalVM.Location `
-VM $newVM `
-DisableBginfoExtension