Many Computer Names for one IP in AD

Cyril, I suspect you may already know this but one way of accomplishing what you want to do would be to use RIS. Unfortunately this means completely changing how you do automated OS/software roll-outs and I assume that you would have already takenthis route if it was right for your situation. I cannot think of any way to accomplish what you want to do from a ghost console since it cannot communicate with AD whereas RIS can(a machine's GUID is stored as an AD object of the RIS server thus allowing the RIS service to preserve all of the information of a computer i.e. name, AD location, etc.) There's a knowledge base article (Q317606) on duplicate account creation which is fixed by service pack 3, however, that doesn't sound like your problem. The only thing that I can think of that might work is to set Automatic Scanvenging in DNS to a very low setting, maybe hours. Good luck and if RIS wasn't ever considered for OS deployment you may want to look into it.

Actually I think I'm getting a little better idea of what you're looking for, Cyril, and I think I may have something that'll work for you. If you have a list of the names that you need to delete then it should be a simple matter to automate their deletion with the resource kit tool addusers.exe. Simply create a text file with all of the computer names that you want to delete and the addusers.exe program will delete all of the accounts in that text file. There's a couple things to remember though: 1. The text file needs to unicode(the file also has to be formatted with the heading [Users] and then all of the accounts underneath that) 2. Computer names are stored in the SAM as machinename$ so if you have a box named MYBOX then it's corresponding account in AD is actually MYBOX$. Once you've made the text file just run the tool with the delete switch like such: addusers /e yoursile.txt \\YOURDOMAINCONTROLLER

Hope this helps, and if you don't have the reskit lemme know and i'll email you the addusers file. Good Luck!

Hi again,

The problem is that to obtain the real list of the computers I have to delete, I have to manipulate many files with Excel and Notepad. Of course, after having the list I already thought to use the net computer command or there is also agood one called "dsrm" or something. Anyway, I have to find a solution fast because in less than three weeks we have to re-image 800 computers...
Thanks again for your help, I wish it could have helpt me.

I'll let you know.

Cyril