Changing The Computer Name

[Guest]

Hi,

We are trying to automate the deployment of our WYSE terminal device. We are
currently using a Ghost image to lay down a base image on the device.

In a nutshell we need a script or tool to change the netbios name of the
device after the image has been loaded. Something like sysprep for WinXPE.

Any thoughts?

 

[Ralph A. Schmid, dk5ras]

Any thoughts?

We are doing this based on the serial number of the connected USB
device with an own little program that is active during the first boot
on the target device (not FBA!), while ewf is still inactive. It
writes the new name in to the registry, issues a reboot, and during
this second boot the ewf activates itself -> the name is "burned" into
the installation.

Ralph.

 

[Guest]

Interesting but doesn't really work in our situation. I should have been
clearer in my earlier post. Our WYSE terminals are named by their MAC address
(i.e. XPE<MAC Address>. We need to be able to have the script interrogate the
system for the MAC then do a bit o' parsing to add 'XPE' and apply that to
the netbios name. We do this with our desktops using WMI but, XPE doesn't
seem to have the same WMI functionality.

 

[Ralph A. Schmid, dk5ras]

Interesting but doesn't really work in our situation. I should have been
clearer in my earlier post. Our WYSE terminals are named by their MAC address
(i.e. XPE<MAC Address>. We need to be able to have the script interrogate the
system for the MAC then do a bit o' parsing to add 'XPE' and apply that to
the netbios name.

This seems to be to me almost the same. So why not write a little
program that gets the MAC address and does the patch into the
registry?

Ralph.

 

[Guest]

Yes, we currenlty do that with our desktop computers, but it seems like the
WMI components that make that possible do not exist in XPE. We tried running
the VB script we use for our desktops and it didn't work. From what I've seen
in the forums XPE seems to run a 'cut-down' or no existent version of WMI.

 

[Ralph A. Schmid, dk5ras]

Yes, we currenlty do that with our desktop computers, but it seems like the
WMI components that make that possible do not exist in XPE. We tried running
the VB script we use for our desktops and it didn't work. From what I've seen
in the forums XPE seems to run a 'cut-down' or no existent version of WMI.

OK, maybe We just wrote some C++ program to do the job, and so far
it works fine!

Ralph.

 

[KM]

Steve,

Not sure about the latest Wyse terminals but in the past we've had problems while running WMI scripts on some of them. Only cure for
us that time was to add the missing WMI component manually to the terminals.

However, in your case you don't really need to do WMI scripting. Computer (dns and netbios) name is easy to change other way. For
instance (reboot required!), a batch or CMD script would do it if it includes one of the following:
- directly change the name in registry.
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\ComputerName\ComputerName],"ComputerName"
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters],"Ho-stname".
You need a reboot so that kernel can read the new name early enough to provide it to some drivers (network) and services
(server service, etc).

- use utilities like NewSID from sysinternals.com. IIRC, v4.0 allows you to change the computer name:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/Security/NewSid.mspx

- use API: SetComputerName[Ex] - http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms724931.aspx.