[sccm 2012] Stealing a Computers Name...

[OhDear]

Hi,

 

We have SCCM 2012 OSD setup to deploy Windows 7 x32, and join it to the domain. For some strange reason some of the computers are stealing a computers name... it is the same model/brand as the one they're stealing it from but it just seems a bit funny..

 

Any ideas?

[FN-GM]

Have a look at the devices in SCCM and the actual machines and see if they have the same MAC address.

 

1. It could be down to a glitch in SCCM and the machines are not reporting the correct MAC address.

2. The machines might have the same MAC addresses (happened to some my machines in my first job).

[OhDear]

Thanks for that, will check it out tomorrow. Is there anything I can do about it if it is the same MAC address?

[FN-GM]

The board manufacturer might be able to provide a disk or something to change it.

 

You could send them back under warranty.

[oxide54]

how is the computer getting the task sequence in the first place?

 

is it advertised to a specific collecton and you are doing import computer information or are you advertising to unknown computers

[Ergo]

The other thing you may want to check is whethter the machine UUID is unique. We have come across many examples of machines where MAC addresses are unique (could cause some really serious network problems if they are not) but the UUID (which is also stored in the BIOS). This is something which SCCM stored and used to identify machines in older versions (I am not yet familiar with SCCM 2012) and only if the UUID was all zeros did it use the MAC address.

 

Many vendors are able to provided tools to update, change or randomise the UUID.

 

Regards

 

David Irwin

[OhDear]

@oxide54 We use PXE boot for the clients to pick up the task sequence, it is deployed to the 'All Systems' collection.

@Ergo I have a feeling it may be the UUID that is the same... Luckily we know the manufacturer pretty well - will see what he says

[oxide54]

there is a reg key to disable sccm server using uuids. didn't work from what i remember you ended up with the same symptoms your getting, i've found the only thing to work is to re-program the uuid.

 

check the uuid when it boots ups and see if its somehting stupid like 111111-222222-4444444--9999999

 

also what bios have machines got, if its ami i might be able to help

[Duke5A]

I was having issues with this too using WDS. The UUID is stored in the netbootguid property in the machine's computer object. If you were ever curious enough to want to find out what it is you can use this script:

 

strLDAPComp = "LDAP://CN=machinename,OU=example computers,DC=example,DC=com"

Set objComp = GetObject(strLDAPComp)

Msgbox "AD UUID:" & ConvertObjectGuidToString(objComp.netbootguid)

Function ConvertObjectGuidToString(ByVal arrRawObjectGUID)
     Dim i, strByte
     Dim arrObjectGUID(15)
     For i = 1 To LenB(arrRawObjectGUID)
           strByte = Hex(AscB(MidB(arrRawObjectGUID, i, 1)))
           If Len(strByte) = 1 Then strByte = "0" & strByte
           arrObjectGUID(i - 1) = strByte
     Next
     ConvertObjectGuidToString = Join(arrObjectGUID, "")
End Function

 

To get the UUID from a Windows box (replace the . in the computer name string with a netbios name to get it from a networked Windows box) that is running, you can use this script:

 

'http://www.tech-archive.net/Archive/Scripting/microsoft.public.scripting.vbscript/2006-07/msg00078.html
'http://araihan.wordpress.com/2010/02/19/how-to-set-computer-naming-policy-in-windows-deployment-services-wds/
'http://www.experts-exchange.com/OS/Microsoft_Operating_Systems/Server/2003_Server/Q_21909382.html

'On Error Resume Next

Const wbemFlagReturnImmediately = &h10
Const wbemFlagForwardOnly = &h20

strComputer = "."

Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:\\" & strComputer & "\root\CIMV2")
Set colItems = objWMIService.ExecQuery("SELECT * FROM Win32_ComputerSystemProduct", "WQL", wbemFlagReturnImmediately + wbemFlagForwardOnly)

For Each objItem In colItems
Msgbox "UUID: " & objItem.UUID
Next

 

I can't take a whole lot of credit for these as they were pieced together from sources around the net. Only the second script had comments in it with sources (it's been a while since I've had to use these). The UUID stored in AD actually has a part of it reversed and that is what the function in the first script fixes to make it human readable.

Edited September 25, 2012 by Duke5A