Help - Search - Members - Calendar
Full Version: Unattended Question
MSFN Forums > Member Contributed Projects > nLite

   
Google Internet Forums Unattended CD/DVD Guide
xenon2050
Is it possible to have the computer name be randomized? We do a lot of deploying and it would be sweet if the Computer Name could be changed with each installation without having to be at the computer... Is this possible?
mikesw
Well the Computer name is stored in the registry. So after windows is installed, just run
a program you wrote that does random number generation and append to the company
prefix name and then use the command at the comand line to write your computer name
back into the registry of that computer.

Another way is to have your program create names in advance and store it to a file.
Then you would stick your floppy/flash into the computer, it would read a pointer that
is stored along with the already generated names which is used to determine
which random compute name is available next in the file and write it to the registry, then update the
pointer and you would go to the next computer and it would be ready to update using the
new pointer value.

Another way is to write a program to read the MAC address of the network card in the
computer and append it to the end of the company computer name. You could also
resolve the MAC address agains't a DNS and append a english name associated with the
MAC/network address and since the MAC addresses are unique, your computer names
will always be unique. You don't want to use IP numbers, since if your network is DHCP'd,
then your computer may have an IP address that's different than the one appended
to your compute name causing alot of confusion on tracing down the computer
with a name vs. the actual IP address of the computer causing the problem.

thumbup.gif
Martin H
Enter : '*' as Computer Name and it will be randomly generated.
xenon2050
Thank you for your responses. I will try that.
stimpee
Is there a way to put in a word + random string as computer name?

i.e. MACH-XXXX
MACH*
Google Internet Forums Unattended CD/DVD Guide
This is a "lo-fi" version of our main content. To view the full version with more information, formatting and images, please click here.