Dynamic hostnames

  • Thread starter Thread starter gautam.bakshi
  • Start date Start date
G

gautam.bakshi

Hey everyone!

I was just wondering if anyone knew if it is possible to have dynamic
hostnames in XP?

What I would like to do is have the hostname of the machine change to
the user's name. Basically we package software, and permission assign
it to the desktop itself instead of the user. So if user "john_smith"
logs into his computer, the hostname will change and this will trigger
the installation of his software.

Any help or insight would be greatly appreciated.
 
I don't think there is a way to change the hostname without a reboot. Having
the hostname and the user name the same may cause some problems if the
computer is on a network. The NETBIOS names will be the same causing many
weird network problems. I can't find a reference but I'm pretty sure XP
won't allow the same hostname and username.
 
XP does allow it. We are currently doing it. But we have to do it
manually. So if a user switchs machines, we just log in and change
the hostname. Reboot the machine and all the software starts coming
in.

I am just trying to see if there's a way to automate it.
 
I was thinking of the computer name. By default XP uses the computer name
for the host name. I still think that your method of distributitng software
will cause some browsing problems on a network. It seems like a non-standard
way of doing things which will come back to bite you when you least expect
it. How will you handle UAC in Vista for instance?
 
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