I have been working on configuring high availability for SharePoint servers (MOSS or WSS), and for a little while I wasn't able to figure out the way to modify the URL for SharePoint Central Administration site. So, basically you extend the Central Administration web application (using GUI or psconfig command) to run on multiple servers, and when you click on SharePoint Central Administration icon you're still redirected to a specific SharePoint server instead of been redirected to the Load Balancing URL. Anyway, as it turns out the URL has to be changed via registry on all SharePoint servers. Weird?!
To change the URL for SharePoint Central Administration URL:
- Open Registry editor
- Backup the registry before making any changes!!!
- Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\12.0\WSS and change the value of CentralAdministrationURL to whatever you want to be
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