Symantec Antivirus Corporate/Enterprise: Change the parent server of a client without reinstalling the application

This is one of those posts that could be filed under... "for future reference". It's something that I'm sure I'll come back to and be glad I documented, so why not post it to the blog?

Did you know that you can easily change your Symantec Antivirus parent server, without uninstalling and reinstalling the client?

You can use the Grc.dat file to do useful things like…

• Change the parent server of a managed client without having to uninstall the client
• Rapidly convert unmanaged clients into managed clients

1. Grab a copy of the Grc.dat file from your Symantec Antivirus parent server file:////server/vphome/clt-inst/win32

2. Open the Grc.dat file in notepad. Change the parent server name by editing the following line such that servername is replaced with the name of your new parent server: Parent=servername

3. Copy the file to the client that you want to change, making sure to put it in the right directory... For Windows 2000/xp/2003, place it in c:\documents and settings\all users\application data\symantec\symantec antivirus corporate edition\7.5

4. Either restart the box, or the Symantec Antivirus service.

The next step would probably be to automate this process using script.