Prompt for PC name, join domain in specific ou

[mattianuk]

Hi,

 

I have 387 8.1 tablets to build, and I can't network boot them, I have configured a USB image for Install with drivers, but it's too late for the unattended file to join it to the domain.

 

Anyway, It auto logs in a user, where I have some scripts waiting to just be run, one I would like is to join it to the domain, prompt for a computer name and put it in a specific OU, and then restart...

 

Anyone know of one?

 

Ta

[mbedford]

Seems strange that you can't WDS boot them... oh well.

 

You can change the default OU that machines go into on creation here;

Easily Change the Default OU in Active Directory — PC-Addicts

 

Joining the domain automatically will be a little more difficult. Could you put a PowerShell script into the start up folder for the machine inside your USB image? This script would basically do the following;

 

***Pseudo code warning***

 

Check for a non-existant (C:\Windows\BOOT1.TXT) file which will tell you if the machine has or has not been rebooted, you could increment this check up to whatever number you want to control after how many reboots you want this to happen, just get your script to rename the file at each reboot ($number = $number++ $filename = $filename + $number +".txt")

 

Once the desired number of reboots has been achieved, implement the following commands

Rename computer and join to domain in one step with PowerShell - Stack Overflow

 

At the end, create another file called something like "C:\Windows\DomainJoined.txt" and put a check for that at the start of your script to prevent duplication of the event.

 

 

Obviously this would be simpler if you could just use WDS to push out an image and you could join the domain as part of your task sequence then, but with that not been option this seems like a simply enough alternative.

 

Hope this helps.

Mike

Edited April 20, 2015 by mbedford

[Garacesh]

FYI, if you create a Computer account in AD, then drop a machine onto the domain that has the same name, it will overwrite the account. So if you 'premake' the tablet accounts in AD, all you have to do is ensure the name is correct and join it into the domain, instead of landing in 'Computers' it will overwrite the entry and be in the right OU.

 

Not perfect, but your other option (I'd assume) is to bake creds into a script that joins them to the domain (Since you can't query AD if you're not on the domain), queries the domain to find out how many machines exist already (I.E. Tablet001 through Tablet006), pick the next number in the sequence (Tablet007), name itself that, then move itself to the right OU.

Edited April 24, 2015 by Garacesh