DHCP Server With Wrong Name and Cannot Delete or Authorize

by Feb 28, 2015

Symptoms:

  • DHCP Server is listed with the wrong name
  • DHCP server is listed with a red –
  • It won’t authorize
  • Choose “All Tasks” and all options are grayed out
  • You can delete it using the red X on the toolbar but it just comes back when you add your server to DHCP

I feel your pain, everything on the internet tells you how to use NETSH or ADSIedit to fix your problem but your problem is not on a domain controller. What do you do?

Open C:\windows\system32\drivers\etc

Open the hosts file with notepad and remove the entry that has the rogue server name and the current IP address. Click save.

Re-open DHCP console and you should be good to go.

This was experienced on a Windows Server 2008 R2 server that had the Quickbooks 2010 database admin installed. The rogue server name was similar to QB_servername_20