Moving a healthy DC VM to another physical host would usually be simpler. Here I deliberately built a new writable DC from a generalized template, updated and promoted it, verified replication, and normally demoted the old DC2. The replacement kept its new name and eventually reused the old IP.

The core switch and functional checks completed on September 21, 2026. The old VM was removed from the domain, powered off, and disconnected, but its disks remained. Reusing an IP does not inherit an FQDN, TLS certificate, or client dependencies.