The new best practice when it comes to computer names seems to be setting the computers serial number as the name. This is great on vendors like Dell which uses a 5 digit Alpha-Numeric code. However, some vendors, like HP, uses a at least 10 digit Alpha-Numeric code. If you want to shorten this down a little bit in Configuration Manger or Deployment Toolkit, you can define this parameter:
OSDComputerName=UKLO-#Right(“%SerialNumber%“,5)#
If the computer has the serial number CZC8521WLT this will set the computer name to UKLO-21WLT. That’s because it starts counting from the right of the serial number and then stops counting at the fifth digit.
Remember to choose wisely, there’s always a chance that you won’t get unique names by doing this since several different computers can have the same last digits. You will most likely run into this problem if you choose to add only one or two digits. I suggest that you always use at least four digits and possibly up to six depending on the number of computers you’re going to deploy.
Howdy,
Great site. Good info. Just want to disagree with your statement in this article about naming schemes.
In the enterprise, there is no way you could realistically name computers as serial numbers. If you have thousands (or even hundreds) of computers, that would be like having people navigate to website by their IP address rather than a real name.
I can see this being ok in two cases (could be more…but this is what I could think of right away)
1. A small shop (under 50 servers)
2. A fully virtualized shop (who cares what an ESX server name is, only IT cares) as people don’t navigate to ESX servers.
Cheers!
bob
Hi,
I wouldn’t name my servers at all using this method but it’s great for clients. How often do you really navigate to a computer? Only real scenario that I can think of is when you’re going to get remote support from the IT-department.
// DeploymentSwede
Hey
My two cents,
I disagree with bob, I think it would be way benificial in larger corporate environments, especially with SCCM, not having to worry about nameing new workstations according to an outdated naming scheme, Plus there are asset tracking advantages there as well.