*-*Update *-*
Edited the post as i just spotted you can’t see all the command!
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How do you name computers on your networks?
Since users make such great use of Remote Web Workplace i’ve taken to naming them the same as the user name (obviously this is dependant on one person having their own PC)
It means the user doesn’t have to remember a PC name, when logging in remotely. They click on “Connect to my computer” and look for their name
“But what if that person leaves the company?!” I hear you cry
Well I have a batch file that I run from the server for renaming computers. It’s much quicker (and not as messy) as doing it manually
Netdom RenameComputer AndyParkes /NewName:AndyParkesPC /UserD:MyDomain\Administrator
/PasswordD:* /Force /ReBoot
pause
Note: The netdom command and it’s parameters are supposed to be on one line. I’ve seperated here for readability
The pause is so that i can view the output when it’s finished.
If i was going to improve this i’d get it to prompt for the new and old computer names but this is a task i perform so infrequently that it’s easier to just edit the batch file
Also note the * for the password is so it prompts for the password. You can save the password in the batch file but who wants to leave their admin passwords lying around?!
Note. NetDom is part of the Windows XP support tools so you’ll need to load that if your going to do it from your PC
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I’m afraid I’m very boring – machines here at Netlink Towers are named NETLINK001, NETLINK002, etc and are physically labelled as such.
It’s a system that I employ at all my customer sites – CUST001, CUSTSVR, etc – somehow it just helps my addled brain remember machine names at a dozen sites!
It’s only a practice i’ve recently adopted to be honest since i’m able to put those practices into place. In my previous job we had a similar system as you and was either CUST001 as your even worse WINXPPC01
My two arguments against this were:
The customer knows who they are…why put it in the computer name? and secondly, why identfy the OS in the computer name..their are plently of places in the management consoles that do that!
We name computer suites after computing pioneers – Babbage, Berners-Lee, Torvalds, Cray, etc. Office machines are simply “Office-xx”, and servers have proper real names – Rupert, Roxy, Bianca, Patrick, Clive, Bart, Lisa.
That command is useful though – I assume it renames both the machine and the associated AD record? Any gotchas with it?
deKay, that makes more sense in a school environment where PCs aren’t assigned to specific people
Yes it renames both the computer and the associated AD computer account
Not aware of any gotchas so would be interested to here if there are any!
We sometimes have machines that have been added as “office23” instead of “office-23”, or have moved from one room to another, so that’s what I’m planning on using it to fix. One thing I have just realised is if you have, for example, a printer shared on a PC and then the PC name is changed. Phonecalls ahoy! 🙂
Thats understandable
We don’t have many situations where printers are shared from PCs though as they generally have their own in built print server or are shared directly from the server
Some naming themes I’ve used have included:
Names of Ships (If a group of machines within the theme are all the same configuration I’d try to assign then names corresponding to ships of a single “class”
Military/quasi-military bases. I’d oft assign each type of machine a name referring to a particular branch with one non-military group thrown in: NASA for Unix-based machines (Dryden, Ames, Goddard, Marshall, JPL). I’d name Acorn RISC OS machines after various British military facilities since Acorn was British (Farnborough [RAF], ScapaFlow [defunct Royal Navy], BoscombeDown [defunct RAF], Dunsfold [defunct RAF, now home to the BBC Top Gear studio], Windows machines would be named after US army facilities (FtHood, FtBragg, WestPoint, CampGrayling), and I’d name Macs after air force bases (Edwards, Carswell, Vandenberg, DavisMonthan, etc)
Another one I’ve seen is naming computers after national parks (Yosemite, Yellowstone, IsleRoyale, Glacier, HotSprings)
Major Laboratories (non-corporate): CERN, OakRidge, LosAlamos, Brookhaven, Fermi, Argonne, Sandia, Livermore, Berkeley, ChalkCreek
and last but not least, after nuclear plants:
Pickering, Bruce, Darlington, Wylfa, Gravelines, PaloVerde, WattsBar, BrownsFerry, Susquehannna, DCCook, and so forth.