Renaming Computers Effect on SMS

[nastri83]

I am about to go around our network and do some preventative maintenance. One of the tasks requires me to rename the computers to the first initial and last name of the current employee (high turnover rate ). Anyway, will this have a negative effect on SMS now that I finally got it up and running?

What methods should I use to make sure the old name is erased from SMS and new ones are discovered? I am using network and active directory system and user discovery methods currently.

 

[jamesch]

We have the same problem, but not as a high turn over rate as you do, one solution was to rename the computer to our inventory tag # that way if an employee leaves and the new one take over the same computer we do not have to change the computer name in AD and other management software stuff. To take it a step further we have multiple locations so we put a letter of that location as a designator followed by the tag # i.e. S1234 for Seattle, or T1234 for Texas, one big domain, not several. If you are running XP, in the computer description is where we put the user name, easy to change in the future, less hassle. But SMS 2.0 I think to have to wait until it picked up the new and decided to delete the old, but I’ve been out for 6 months on military duty, and I’m tiring to get back into the computer thinking mode.

 

[sjones925]

In SMS 2003, when you rename the workstations, you will see the old and new workstations in the SMS console. SMS will age the old computer names out and remove them from the list. You will see the old computer names listed as "Obsolete clients".

 

[ncotton]

The length of time between machines becogin Ative / Obselete / Aged / Deleted depends on all the settings you have configured (or not) in Site > Site Settings > Maintenance (i think) > Tasks

Hope this Helps.

Neil J Cotton
njc Information Systems
Systems Consultant

 

[drewdown]

Neil is correct. Just make sure the tasks are enabled and you will see your old machines dropping off after a short time.