Chosing Computer Name and OU at start? Where we are and where I want to be...

[Sam_Brown]

Hi guys,

 

WHERE WE ARE...

 

All computers are Windows XP. We have WDS set up on Server 208 R2 server.

 

We currently do a normal PXE boot which then downloads the only boot image and runs a client unattend file to put in all the details such as authentication \ partition \ language settings. The only thing we then do is select the image and then it downloads.

 

Computer restarts and it runs through the normal first time boot from a sysprepped machine. Everything is automated apart from asking for a computer name and administrator password.

 

WHERE I WANT TO BE

 

Similar to how it is at the moment however we want to move entering in computer name and the OU from after the image has been installed to doing it before the image has been installed.

 

Guess what we want is to run it at the end of the day, enter the computer name and OU we want it to go into and then leave it installing the image overnight so we can return and everything has been done.

 

Appreciate we can kinda do this with server properties on the WDS server under the ADDS menu but if we want to install 30 computers all in different rooms or they will be going into different OU's then it's not really going to work...

 

Any ideas?

 

Maybe a custom Windows PE image or some scriptng required? A script that will edit the Sysprep.inf that's run at the beginning and overwrites the one in the image when it's restarted? I don't know.

Edited May 9, 2011 by Sam_Brown

[plexer]

MDT2010 can add that layer for you.

 

Ben

[Sam_Brown]

Know any decent guides or video tutorials at all?

[glennda]

Or look at fog - does everything for you like that but runs on linux

[Cools]

i would build the OU layout and add a new computer(s) in to it with the name you want to use..

so when it joins it drops in to that OU

and use a script change name based on mac.. where you can get the macs from the DHCP server.. Just export.

and use netdom to join the domain on 1st boot after rename...

 

not the best way to do it.. but should work .. but if you have MDT2010 like plexer said it should do it to..

[Sam_Brown]

Cool. Hearing lot of good things about MDT. Looking for some decent guides or video tutorials if anone knows any!

[Cools]

not got my MDT going yet..

 

but as part of my prev post

---------------------------------------

 

ECHO.

ECHO Setting Computer Name

ECHO Please wait...

for /f "tokens=1" %i IN ("compname /d ?m") do set MAC=%i

IF %MAC% == 000000000000 compname /c apollo

IF %MAC% == 000000000000 compname /c cratos

IF %MAC% == 000000000000 compname /c cyclops

IF %MAC% == 000000000000 compname /c delphi

IF %MAC% == 000000000000 compname /c janus

IF %MAC% == 000000000000 compname /c mars

IF %MAC% == 000000000000 compname /c mercury

IF %MAC% == 000000000000 compname /c neptune

IF %MAC% == 000000000000 compname /c nereid

IF %MAC% == 000000000000 compname /c neti

IF %MAC% == 000000000000 compname /c odyssey

IF %MAC% == 000000000000 compname /c pallas

IF %MAC% == 000000000000 compname /c pluto

EXIT

 

----------------------------------------------------

 

compname is a exe = compname.exe you could find it on the net or i think a old 95 or 98 CD