{"id":68383,"date":"2005-12-07T15:40:00","date_gmt":"2005-12-07T15:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.technet.microsoft.com\/heyscriptingguy\/2005\/12\/07\/how-can-i-change-the-description-for-a-computer\/"},"modified":"2005-12-07T15:40:00","modified_gmt":"2005-12-07T15:40:00","slug":"how-can-i-change-the-description-for-a-computer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/how-can-i-change-the-description-for-a-computer\/","title":{"rendered":"How Can I Change the Description for a Computer?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Hey, \n

Hey, Scripting Guy! When I use Windows Explorer to connect to a remote computer, I can see a description of that computer in the Details pane. How can I change the description for a computer?

— GF<\/P>\"Spacer\"\"Hey,\"Script<\/A> \n

Hey, GF. Just to make sure everyone is clear what we\u2019re talking about, we are not<\/I> talking about the Description attribute in Active Directory; instead, we\u2019re talking about the computer description that gets broadcast across the network. (If you\u2019d rather know how to change the Description attribute in Active Directory, see this <\/B>Hey, Scripting Guy!<\/I><\/B> column<\/B><\/A>.)<\/P>\n

For example, in Windows XP you can get to the computer description by right-clicking My Computer, clicking Properties<\/B>, and then looking on the Computer Name<\/B> tab in the System Properties<\/B> dialog box:<\/P>\"Computer \n


And, as you noted, if you connect to this computer using Windows Explorer, the description will appear in the Details<\/B> pane as well:<\/P>\"Computer \n


We thought it was pretty exciting, too.<\/P>\n

So how can you change the description for a computer? Well, you could<\/I> open up Regedit.exe and manually change the registry value HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\System\\CurrentControlSet\\Services\\lanmanserver\\parameters\\srvcomment. Or, you could just run a script like this one:<\/P>

Const HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE = &H80000002<\/p>\n
strComputer = “.”<\/p>\n
Set objRegistry = GetObject _\n    (“winmgmts:\\\\” & strComputer & “\\root\\default:StdRegProv”)<\/p>\n
strKeyPath = “System\\CurrentControlSet\\Services\\lanmanserver\\parameters”\nstrValueName = “srvcomment”\nstrDescription = “Description changed programmatically”<\/p>\n
objRegistry.SetStringValue HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, strKeyPath, strValueName, strDescription\n<\/PRE>\n
Of course it\u2019s easy; after all this time did you really think we\u2019d suddenly start giving you complicated and convoluted answers to your questions? We begin by defining a constant named HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE and setting the value to &H80000002; in a minute we\u2019ll use this constant to tell the script which registry hive we want to work with. We then connect to the WMI service (in this case on the local computer, though we can just as easily modify the registry on a remote machine) and bind to the StdRegProv<\/B> class. (Which, as we never tire of telling people, happens to be found in the root\\default<\/B> namespace.)<\/P>\n
Next we assign values to three variables:<\/P>
strKeyPath = “System\\CurrentControlSet\\Services\\lanmanserver\\parameters”\nstrValueName = “srvcomment”\nstrDescription = “Description changed programmtically”\n<\/PRE>\n
The variable strKeyPath represents the path within the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE portion of the registry; strValueName represents the registry value (srvcomment<\/B>) we\u2019re about to change; and strDescription – that\u2019s right: strDescription represents the new computer description. That\u2019s a very astute observation.<\/P>\n\n<\/THEAD>\n\n\n
\n
Note<\/B>. We\u2019d tell you that you guys are way better at this stuff than we are, but we don\u2019t want our manager to get any ideas. And yes: getting an idea would<\/I> be a first for a Microsoft manager!<\/P><\/TD><\/TR><\/TBODY><\/TABLE>\n
<\/DIV>\n
All we have to do now is call the SetStringValue<\/B> method, passing HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE and our three variables as the method parameters:<\/P>
objRegistry.SetStringValue HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, strKeyPath, strValueName, strDescription\n<\/PRE>\n
Scripts like that really do<\/I> make life worth living, don\u2019t they?<\/P>\n\n<\/THEAD>\n\n\n
\n
Note<\/B>. Be forewarned that even though this change is made in the registry the new description might not take effect until the computer has rebooted. Just something to keep in mind.<\/P><\/TD><\/TR><\/TBODY><\/TABLE>\n
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\"Top<\/A>Top of page<\/A><\/TD><\/TR><\/TBODY><\/TABLE><\/DIV><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hey, Scripting Guy! When I use Windows Explorer to connect to a remote computer, I can see a description of that computer in the Details pane. How can I change the description for a computer?— GF Hey, GF. Just to make sure everyone is clear what we\u2019re talking about, we are not talking about the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":595,"featured_media":87096,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[237,16,31,26,3,5],"class_list":["post-68383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-scripting","tag-basic-computer-information","tag-desktop-management","tag-operating-system","tag-registry","tag-scripting-guy","tag-vbscript"],"acf":[],"blog_post_summary":"
Hey, Scripting Guy! When I use Windows Explorer to connect to a remote computer, I can see a description of that computer in the Details pane. How can I change the description for a computer?— GF Hey, GF. Just to make sure everyone is clear what we\u2019re talking about, we are not talking about the […]<\/p>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/595"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68383\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}