listening to Disintegration Loop 1.1. Track goes for 1h3m.

https://open.spotify.com/track/10SeyQmuBIVJmbZYYJs07W?si=a196e615f1dc4857

@hobbit666 said in Help with renaming PC:

I use this when setting up new machines

$ServiceTAG = "PC-$((Get-WmiObject Win32_BIOS).serialnumber)"
$OLDNAME = (Get-WmiObject win32_COMPUTERSYSTEM).Name
Rename-Computer -ComputerName $OLDNAME -NewName $ServiceTAG -force

 $ServiceTAG = "PC-$((Get-WmiObject Win32_BIOS).serialnumber)"
        $OLDNAME = (Get-WmiObject win32_COMPUTERSYSTEM).Name
        Rename-Computer -ComputerName $OLDNAME -NewName $ServiceTAG -force

this was a great help, thank you @hobbit666 . I changed it to this:

"B311-$("$env:computername$(get-random)")"
$OLDNAME = (Get-WmiObject win32_COMPUTERSYSTEM).Name
Rename-Computer -ComputerName $OLDNAME -NewName $ServiceTAG -force -restart

As the netbios names were displaying as the same.

@dashrender said in Active Directory Domain name:

@siringo said in Active Directory Domain name:

@dashrender said in Active Directory Domain name:

@siringo said in Active Directory Domain name:

so are you guys saying that the new thinking is now to give your inhouse, private AD domain name a subdomain name of your public domain name?

I wouldn't call it new - it's been since at least 2016, and likely longer than that.

is that primarily to avoid that macOS stuff Scott mentioned?

I believe dumping .local was to avoid the mac issues, the subdomain use is because of DNS.

I never did any 2000/AD training (3.51 for me) but I can clearly remember reading MS technotes that mentioned using .local. That's why I've used that since.

I believe .local came into vogue around Server 2003 (maybe 2003R2) and was stopped around Server 2008 or 2012.

Oh, OK. Thanks for that. I'd never heard of any of that before. Good to know.

FYI - Local was also dumped because it's not a valid TLD (Top Level Domain) - i.e. can't be used on the internet. Certificate makers are now refusing to include domain.local in new certificates.

Interesting. I believe that is why it was used in private AD environments in the first place, for that very reason.

@siringo Thought I'd add this for others may be looking:

$value = @{Description = 'My own gaming computer'}
Set-CimInstance -Query 'Select * From Win32_OperatingSystem' -Property $value

thanks for all help so far.

can anyone help me with a way in which I can add a PC description via command line/powershell etc?

I'm trying to remove the need for typing as I stuff up more things than get right.

I can create a unique PC name from the above, so I've deceide if I can add a useful common description to each PC I can then identify them via the description field.

@dashrender said in Help with renaming PC:

@jaredbusch said in Help with renaming PC:

Use powershell

Rename-Computer -NewName somename

It could easily take you longer to find a script than just type this command on each machine.

I agree.

Just trying to find a quick way to change the PC name and add to a domain.

The domain name has 32 characters in it.

Hello.

These things come with whatever's on them (Acer) and we install the provided image which contains tons of free educational apps, Office, and lots of other stuff. I work in an education environment, so the image contains whatever the Department provide.

Yes, we buy Acer's, HP's, Dell's, Lenovo's, whatever the supplier has on hand when stuff is needed.

This problem sounds familiar.
It's not a normal.dot type problem is it? Where the originator used normal.dot as their doc tempate, saved it as .dot again and it's screwing up everyone's normal.dot that reads / alters the document.

@dashrender said in Active Directory Domain name:

@siringo said in Active Directory Domain name:

so are you guys saying that the new thinking is now to give your inhouse, private AD domain name a subdomain name of your public domain name?

I wouldn't call it new - it's been since at least 2016, and likely longer than that.

is that primarily to avoid that macOS stuff Scott mentioned?

I believe dumping .local was to avoid the mac issues, the subdomain use is because of DNS.

I never did any 2000/AD training (3.51 for me) but I can clearly remember reading MS technotes that mentioned using .local. That's why I've used that since.

I believe .local came into vogue around Server 2003 (maybe 2003R2) and was stopped around Server 2008 or 2012.

Oh, OK. Thanks for that. I'd never heard of any of that before. Good to know.

Hoping someone can help me out with this.

I need to rename a bunch of PCs & want to use a simple script.

I found this:

*@ECHO OFF

set PC=NEW_PC_NAME

wmic path win32_computersystem where "Name='%computername%'" CALL rename name='%PC%'*

I've not tested it yet, but is there a way I can make the script prompt me to enter the new PC name???

Or any other way I can achieve this???

Thanks for any help.

@dashrender said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

@siringo said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

i'm imaging 50 netbooks. one of the things I hate most in IT is unboxing. It's such an unproductive, wasteful use of my time.

But I get paid the same if I unbox or perform brain surgery.

Pretty sure Scott would call this Benchwork, not IT work.

Could be right.

I call it successfully performing the tasks required to secure and maintain employment.

@obsolesce g'day. they just need the 'corporate' image on them. They're brand new.

i'm imaging 50 netbooks. one of the things I hate most in IT is unboxing. It's such an unproductive, wasteful use of my time.

But I get paid the same if I unbox or perform brain surgery.

so are you guys saying that the new thinking is now to give your inhouse, private AD domain name a subdomain name of your public domain name?

is that primarily to avoid that macOS stuff Scott mentioned?

I never did any 2000/AD training (3.51 for me) but I can clearly remember reading MS technotes that mentioned using .local. That's why I've used that since.

@dashrender Don't need network access friend.

I took a look at Clonezilla Live, it is nice, but takes me too far away from what I'm looking for, something that will boot up, let me run 1 command a walk away while the PC images.

I spent time with DISM, it works and does what I want, but it's a little slow, but I may have to put up with that.

Thanks everyone for the help.

sitting the rear bedroom doing stuff & getting hot. 30 degrees C today, no AC in this room with the afternoon sun blasting onto the wall.

I did find a nice & easy to use command based tool, that works very well.

Just checked its' price though, it's in euros and conversion puts it out of reach unfortunately.

Thanks everyone for the help, it is greatly appreciated.

@notverypunny said in windows based FREE imaging app:

@siringo said in windows based FREE imaging app:

@notverypunny said in windows based FREE imaging app:

@siringo said in windows based FREE imaging app:

@dashrender said in windows based FREE imaging app:

It's not windows based - but Clonzilla does what you want, and you can figure out the script/command line for it too.

Does clonezilla run off a usb stick?? I need something that doesn't require a network.

Yes, I can't recall if you can have the image repo on the bootable media since it' been a while, but it's definitely an off-line option. When I was using it the USB sticks I could afford weren't big enough to hold an image so it was a USB to boot and an external HDD for the images.

Yep, sounds like what I'll do.

They've released a Lite version so you don't need a server anymore, runs off a USB. I'm checking it out now.

I think you're looking for the live version: https://clonezilla.org/clonezilla-live.php

From what I'm seeing, the Lite version looks like it still wants to use a network source as the image repo.

AAHHH, yep, live, not lite. I downloaded the lite version and yep it wanted a servery type thing for the source images.

I'll try the LIVE version and see what happens.

@scotth said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

@siringo said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

sitting at a desk, downloading w1021h2-x64 iso ... again. I gotta get organised.

I stumbled across these a couple of months ago.

uupdump.net
AveYou - GitHub

Magnificent, thanks. Now all I gotta do is try to remember I know about these!

Bloody memory, I can't remem . . . . . . . what am I doing?

@notverypunny said in windows based FREE imaging app:

@siringo said in windows based FREE imaging app:

@dashrender said in windows based FREE imaging app:

It's not windows based - but Clonzilla does what you want, and you can figure out the script/command line for it too.

Does clonezilla run off a usb stick?? I need something that doesn't require a network.

Yes, I can't recall if you can have the image repo on the bootable media since it' been a while, but it's definitely an off-line option. When I was using it the USB sticks I could afford weren't big enough to hold an image so it was a USB to boot and an external HDD for the images.

Yep, sounds like what I'll do.

They've released a Lite version so you don't need a server anymore, runs off a USB. I'm checking it out now.