How to clone, disjoin & rename a Windows 2008 R2 VM offline, then rejoin domain online
Solution 1:
With all servers that are domain-joined, you need to sysprep them first. Revise your steps to the following:
1) Clone the machine using VMWare tools.
2) Boot without network connection.
3) Run C:\windows\System32\sysprep\sysprep.exe and tick "Generalize". Allow it to reboot.
4) Name the machine and connect it to the network and join as normal.
The sysprep is absolutely required to ensure the servers don't have conflicting SIDs. Be sure to regenerate the MAC address of the network adapter when you do the clone as well (I believe ESXi does this for you anyway).
Solution 2:
Adding to Nathan C's answer.
The proper supported way of cloning an AD joined computer is by using sysprep.
While normally you can safely say that your new machine will get a new RID, microsoft recommends using sysprep. So unless you can be absolutely sure you won't cause any unforeseen issues it's generally better to follow the recommendations.
However it has since been established and tested quite a few times and the SID is not as important as all that so your procedure will work, and if you utilize it only for testing then you should be fine.
Affected services are:
- WSUS
- System Center
- KMS
If you use any of these 3 utilities, you will get problems from your current approach that you would not get when sysprepping.
These problems normally only affect the newly added machine though, so the answer to:
Does this procedure affect the original server
Is: generally no, it shouldn't.
Keep in mind though, you're avoiding microsoft best practices for an easy fix.
Which generally does not end well, and definitely isn't long-term sustainable.