Friday, 3. September 2010
One of the worst things you can do for a network is give every computer random names. I work for a school district, and we use the following name scheme:
<School>-<Room Number><Student or Teacher><Number>
So, for an elementary school student computer in room 106, the first computer going from the left side of the room when you walk in all-around back to the door would be called:
ELEM-106-s01
(the “S” is for student, “T” for teacher, “nb” for notebook)
The advantages:
Looking through Ghost, Active Directory, or Desktop Authority, we can know instantly where a computer is.
It’s alphabetical, so any computer is easy to find.
It’s easy to remember.
I can instantly know what side of the building it is on based on whether it is elem (elementary) or hs (high-school).
“What about Descriptions”
Though it is true that you can set up descriptions instead of giving proper names, a program such as Ghost will not display these in any sort of order based on location.
Other Naming Schemes:
Many buildings do not have room numbers. You should look at naming computers after their floor and department.
For mobile computers, you might even consider using the primary users name (eg: nb-jesse-zylstra) if the computer moves around a lot.
Friday, 3. September 2010
“Account Already Exists” error on Windows 2000, XP, and Windows 7/Vista indicates that Active Directory already has the computer listed. You can not have two computers of the same name, even if one is offline. (If the other is online, you will see: “Duplicate Name on Network”. More about this further down)
How you fix it:
Log in to your Active Directory computer, and go to “Active Directory Users and Computers”. Find the computer name you wish to use and delete it.
Return to the computer, and set the computer name as you normally would. (Sometimes, Active Directory changes can take a short period of time before actually taking place. Also, if you have multiple Active Directory computers, you may run across the issue of having to wait for them to synchronize the change).
How to avoid it:
Before changing the name of any computer, you should drop the computer from the domain. The best way to do this is to switch the computer from being on the domain to being on a workgroup. The computer says: “I’m leaving” to the Active Directory server, and Active Directory drops the computer from it’s database.
Duplicate Name on Network:
You must find the other computer name and change it before you can use the name without receiving this error. You should still be able to log in and use the computer with this error, but it is very bad network practice to do so.