New-AzureVM does not honor DnsSettings - "can only be specified on new deployments"

Hi all

As many others I am struggling with Azure's not-so-flexible handling of DNS client settings, namely that DNS client settings cannot be changed after VM deployment. I am about to deploy a second Domain Controller (in the same Azure service for being able to place the DCs in the same availability set) with this command:

New-AzureVM -ServiceName $serviceName -VMs $azvm -DnsSettings $DnsAzDc01,$DnsAzLocalhost

But the new virtual machine does not honor (and use) the specified DNS settings, but rather "inherits" the DNS settings that are specified for the Azure service, as already shown by some warnings:

WARNING: VNetName, DnsSettings, DeploymentLabel or DeploymentName Name can only be specified on new deployments.

This is a problem because the Azure service has wrong, old DNS settings, but more important,this seems to be in contradiction to the many examples that suggest that DnsSettings can be specified per virtual machine at VM creation time. Examples including Microsoft's own example here, Step 6:

http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/documentation/articles/virtual-networks-install-replica-active-directory-domain-controller/#provisionvm

Now the important questions - what are my options? So far I only found the idea of exporting and removing the existing domain Controller (keeping the disks), then creating a new Azure service with (hopefully!) correct DNS settings and importing the virtual machine. Are there any other good alternatives?

• Thanks for reading
• /Maurice