The one thing to keep in mind is that once the server has been renamed in Windows, you need to do this:
EXEC sp_dropserver OLDNAME
EXEC sp_addserver NEWNAME, local
And then restart SQL Server. (You may also have to reboot after sp_dropserver; I don't recall exactly.)
Obviously, connecting clients, including other servers that have linked servers set up to this one need to be changed.
[font="Times New Roman"]Erland Sommarskog, SQL Server MVP, www.sommarskog.se[/font]