Rename the My Computer Icon Label with Useful Info

Just a quick, useful tweak. This info is available on many places on the web, but I thought I'd throw it on Connect too for anyone who could benefit from it.

The My Computer icon, by default, looks like this:

With this registry tweak, you can add username and computer information, like this:

Manual Method

To make this change manually:

1. Open the Registry editor, regedt32.
2. Go to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}

3. Change the value of LocalizedString to:

   %USERNAME% on %COMPUTERNAME%
   

   (or whatever you'd like it to read)

   (default value is: @%SystemRoot%\system32\SHELL32.dll,-9216)

Scripted Method

Use this scripted method to push it out to computers:

1. Export the {20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D} key with the updated LocalizedString value to a .reg file.
2. Modify the .reg file to remove the extra values so only the LocalizedString value is shown. It should looke something like this:
   

   Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
   [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}]
   "LocalizedString"=hex(2):25,00,55,00,53,00,45,00,52,00,4e,00,41,00,4d,00,45,00,\
   25,00,20,00,6f,00,6e,00,20,00,25,00,43,00,4f,00,4d,00,50,00,55,00,54,00,45,\
   00,52,00,4e,00,41,00,4d,00,45,00,25,00,00,00

    

3. Put the .reg file out on a network share.
4. Create a script that can be used in any deployment tool such as Altiris Deployment Solution, or via GPO.
   

   regedit /s \\networkshare\mycomputerrename.reg 

Other than using a tool like BgInfo, this is a good way to have the username and computername info available at quick glance.