PC's Renaming to Previous Name

[theeggmaster]

We've had a couple of cases recently where we've found PC's renaming themselves to their previous name spontaneously. This then drops them out of AD and also breaks Google Chrome. Just wondering if anyone else has seen this before, and if they have found out why it's happening? I've looked at DHCP and DNS, and can't find any issues there (although I don't see how DHCP or DNS would force a device to rename itself).

[andydis]

FACT: Pc's dont Rename themselves

 

Possible answers i can think of are :-

 

1) a system restore is happening to a time when the pc was name its older name

2) someone is using the NETDOM cmd line utility

3) The "previous" version of windows hadn't been deleted correctly / on a different partition and somehow booted form that

4) Windows backup has restored the pc to an earlier time

5) You may have some software like Deepfreeze / Ghost , changing the pc name to an earlier time

[FN-GM]

It will be startup repair kicking in an restoring the computer back to the past and then it will have the old name.

 

You can use this in a batch file to disable it. It should be disabled for security reasons anyway. People can use it to elevate themselves to local admin

 

bcdedit /set {default} recoveryenabled No

bcdedit /set {default} bootstatuspolicy ignoreallfailures

[sonofsanta]

Fun fact: we sometimes get this when we install a wireless card in a PC. If it's a card we've used in the past, FOG recognises the MAC address and forcibly renames the PC to match whatever the last machine was. Caught us out a couple of times, because we're idiots

 

(Probably not what's happening here, but might give you a nudge in the right direction)

[theeggmaster]

Thanks for all of your help. I suspect startup repair is the issue as it's not disabled. I'll get the batch script set up now.

[dapaulio]

Is this happening straight after imagining. Wds... if configure... will name a computer based on what you have previously named it. Just throwing it out there but have you an unattended file which is naming computers

[theeggmaster]

Is this happening straight after imagining. Wds... if configure... will name a computer based on what you have previously named it. Just throwing it out there but have you an unattended file which is naming computers

 

No, it can happen with both newly-imaged and PCs that have been working for years. We don't name PCs with the unattend file, we have a prompt that you type the PC name into.