managing computer names

[labbis]

So i've just made my unattended windows setup, but i've got just one problem. I have multiple PCs at home, and wondering how i can get the windows XP setup cd to give each PC a unique name, now it seems that all pcs end up with the same name. Which I would expect, since windows nLite asked for a computer name during the setup for making the unattended. So if you have a few easy commands for making unattended setup able to give a random PC name. I'd be very happy =)

[IcemanND]

change the computername line in the answer file to * and random anmes will be assigned.

[Ralin]

wild guess, but I don't think he wants random names...

Can't think of another, easy, way of doing it though...

[IcemanND]

So if you have a few easy commands for making unattended setup able to give a random PC name. I'd be very happy =)

Seems that is what he asked for.

Another option if you have a dns server set up in your network is to use either the random name or a fixed name depending upon how many machines you set up at once and then use a script to query dns for the registered name and change it accordingly.

[druiddk]

We are setting the name by the MAC address :-)

[JulesKr]

I accept the normal auto generated pc names, but they get all overwritten (along with some other data) just after imaging, after the first reboot done by the sysprep script. The machine contains ZenWorks ZisWin, which is able to reset the computername to its old value (and with SID, workgroup name, DNS settings and so on.)

It is derived from image-safe-data part (part of MBR)

ZenWorks rulez!!!!

Jules