diff --git a/Jakefile.js b/Jakefile.js
index edfd14fc1a..5f8fbfbfce 100644
--- a/Jakefile.js
+++ b/Jakefile.js
@@ -361,23 +361,24 @@ compileFile(/*outfile*/configureNightlyJs,
             /*preserveConstEnums*/ undefined,
             /*keepComments*/ false,
             /*noResolve*/ false,
-            /*stripInternal*/ false,
-            /*callback*/ function () {
-                var cmd = "node " + configureNightlyJs + " " + packageJson + " " + programTs;
-                console.log(cmd);
-                exec(cmd, completeHandler, errorHandler)
-            });
+            /*stripInternal*/ false);
 
-task("setDebugModeTrue", function() {
+task("setDebugMode", function() {
     useDebugMode = true;
 });
 
-desc("Configure, build, test, and publish the nightly release.");
-task("publish-nightly", [configureNightlyJs, "LKG", "clean", "setDebugModeTrue", "runtests"], function () {
-    var cmd = "npm publish";
+task("configure-nightly", [configureNightlyJs], function() {
+    var cmd = "node " + configureNightlyJs + " " + packageJson + " " + programTs;
     console.log(cmd);
-    exec(cmd, completeHandler, errorHandler)
-}, {async: true});
+    exec(cmd);
+}, { async: true });
+
+desc("Configure, build, test, and publish the nightly release.");
+task("publish-nightly", ["configure-nightly", "LKG", "clean", "setDebugMode", "runtests"], function () {
+    var cmd = "npm publish --tag next";
+    console.log(cmd);
+    exec(cmd);
+});
 
 // Local target to build the compiler and services
 var tscFile = path.join(builtLocalDirectory, compilerFilename);
diff --git a/scripts/configureNightly.ts b/scripts/configureNightly.ts
index a0e30b007c..640f330b37 100644
--- a/scripts/configureNightly.ts
+++ b/scripts/configureNightly.ts
@@ -27,11 +27,6 @@ function main(): void {
     // Modify the package.json structure
     packageJsonValue.version = nightlyVersion;
 
-    if (packageJsonValue.name !== "typescript-nightly") {
-        packageJsonValue.name = "typescript-nightly";
-        packageJsonValue.keywords.push("nightly", "alpha", "beta", "prerelease");
-    }
-
     // Acquire and modify the source file that exposes the version string.
     const tsFilePath = ts.normalizePath(sys.args[1]);
     const tsFileContents = sys.readFile(tsFilePath);
@@ -40,7 +35,16 @@ function main(): void {
 
     // Ensure we are actually changing something - the user probably wants to know that the update failed.
     if (tsFileContents === modifiedTsFileContents) {
-        throw `File '${tsFilePath}' did not contain pattern ${versionAssignmentRegExp}`;
+        let err = `\n  '${tsFilePath}' was not updated while configuring for a nightly publish.\n    `;
+
+        if (tsFileContents.match(versionAssignmentRegExp)) {
+            err += `Ensure that you have not already run this script; otherwise, erase your changes using 'git checkout -- "${tsFilePath}"'.`;
+        }
+        else {
+            err += `The file seems to no longer have a string matching '${versionAssignmentRegExp}'.`;
+        }
+
+        throw err + "\n";
     }
 
     // Finally write the changes to disk.
@@ -51,19 +55,19 @@ function main(): void {
 function getNightlyVersionString(versionString: string): string {
     // If the version string already contains "-nightly",
     // then get the base string and update based on that.
-    const dashNightlyPos = versionString.indexOf("-nightly");
+    const dashNightlyPos = versionString.indexOf("-dev");
     if (dashNightlyPos >= 0) {
         versionString = versionString.slice(0, dashNightlyPos);
     }
 
     // We're going to append a representation of the current time at the end of the current version.
     // String.prototype.toISOString() returns a 24-character string formatted as 'YYYY-MM-DDTHH:mm:ss.sssZ',
-    // but we'd prefer to just use hyphens as separators instead of 'T', ':', and '.'.
-    // The trailing 'Z' in this string can be removed; UTC time will always be implicit here.
+    // but we'd prefer to just remove separators and limit ourselves to YYYYMMDD.
+    // UTC time will always be implicit here.
     const now = new Date();
-    const timeStr = now.toISOString().slice(0, -1).replace(/:|T|\./g, "-");
+    const timeStr = now.toISOString().replace(/:|T|\.|-/g, "").slice(0, 8);
 
-    return `${versionString}-nightly-${timeStr}`;
+    return `${versionString}-dev.${timeStr}`;
 }
 
 main();
\ No newline at end of file