I am trying to create a ghost boot disk that will generate a random name to be used as the computername and placed in the network.ini file:
[network]
computername=”randomly generated name”
Does anyone know of a program/utility that will do this? Also, how would I get it included in the network.ini file during the boot process so that computername would be unique on the network.
The reason I want to do this is so I can use the same boot disk on multiple computers at the same time without manually changing the network.ini file between each computer.
I have been “experimenting” since I posted this. I found a small util called change that is only 15k.
It can be used like this:
CHANGE /I a:\net\network.ini “computername=” “%computername%%rnd%”
IF I start with set computername= and can set a variable for %rnd%
I was thinking of using the time as the variable like this:
time /t > timevar.txt
OR, I could possibly use the volume serial number as the random value like so:
find | “Volume Serial Number” > vol.txt
The thing that has me stumped is how to get the value from the timevar.txt or vol.txt set as the %rnd% variable.
If I end up using the volume serial number, how could I parse the vol.txt to removeeverything except the actual number?
Keep in mind that this will all be done from DOS and any utils will have to fit on a bootable floppy along with the NIC drivers. If the batch file gets too big, I can always convert it to a COM file if it willsave enough space.
Or am I totally off base in my thinking?
I appreciate any and all input.