Unattended Question

[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.

[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*

Edited July 12, 2007 by stimpee