Changing SAMaccount name

Question

Dear All: I follow a name convention when creating a new account inside our organisation, for example toni_mourad@xyz.com.lb, this account used for windows login so when i loggin to the pc i type xyz\toni_mourad and type the password. We allowed some specific users also to send email outside the organization so we change the email address of them to be for example t.mourad@xyz.com. the issue is i have a software used by the dev department working on retreving the account from AD using the SAMaccountname (first name and last name). Some old users are created not following the name convention (like for example of paul smith, the SAMaccount name is smith, so i need to change it to paul_smith). I know that i can change the SAMaccount name, but my question is what to update after the change? Does a new profile is created on the pc with name paul_smith and need to move all files from the old(smith) to the new one, or windows will automatically change the name and don't create a new profile? The change also affect the email address? Does a new mailbox is created?routing the emails to the new SAMaccount will lead for emails lose? And finally what about the app that are syncronized with AD accounts. Thanks a lot for your yelp.

Answer 1

Hi @Tony Mourad

On Exchange side changing SAMaccountName for a user would not cause email to lose, as it is still the same AD account associated with the Exchange mailbox.

And if your default email address domain is for example contoso.com, you probably have an email address policy on Exchange to change the email domain (or have manually changed the primary email address on the mailbox) to xyz.com.

In this case changing SAMaccountName would not change the email address of the mailbox.

On Active Directory side, to my understanding and based on my test, since it is still the same AD account (same SID), it would not create new profiles on computers after the SAMaccountName change.

(While kindly note that we mainly focus on Exchange and may not be very familiar with AD)

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