I'm going to be installing MOSS next month and I'm building a test
install using the full eval version from my TechNet subscription. I
already have WSS installed and it is only for internal users so the site
names weren't an issue. However, MOSS will have internal and external
named users accessing it.

My question is, how do you create a MOSS installation and subsequent
site collections that don't have the host name in it? I want to create
sites that will be accessible via a public url, for example,
https://sharepoint.mycompany.com. When I installed MOSS on the test
machine, I didn't have a choice on what to name it...it defaults to
http://servername. This is also causing IE to throw the 'there is a
problem with this web sites security certificate' message because of
naming mis-matches. And I believe sites with host-names can't do
alternate access mappings.

I know this is a basic question but I've been unable to find a solution
in MS documents or on the intertubes. I'm perfectly willing to
uninstall and reinstall MOSS if that is part of the solution.

Thanks in advance for any links/help/advice/comments! And thanks for
tolerating a MOSS newbie.