<p>Is it possible to change the hostname in Windows 2003 from the command line with out-of-the-box tools?</p>

I don't know of a command to do this, but you could do it in VBScript or something similar.
Somthing like:
```
```
sNewName = "put new name here" 

Set oShell = CreateObject ("WSCript.shell" ) 

sCCS = "HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\" 
sTcpipParamsRegPath = sCCS & "Services\Tcpip\Parameters\" 
sCompNameRegPath = sCCS & "Control\ComputerName\" 

With oShell 
.RegDelete sTcpipParamsRegPath & "Hostname" 
.RegDelete sTcpipParamsRegPath & "NV Hostname" 

.RegWrite sCompNameRegPath & "ComputerName\ComputerName", sNewName 
.RegWrite sCompNameRegPath & "ActiveComputerName\ComputerName", sNewName 
.RegWrite sTcpipParamsRegPath & "Hostname", sNewName 
.RegWrite sTcpipParamsRegPath & "NV Hostname", sNewName 
End With ' oShell 

MsgBox "Computer name changed, please reboot your computer"
```
```
Original