Rename the My Computer Icon Label with Useful Info
Created: 15 Jul 2009 | Updated: 15 Jul 2009
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:
- Open the Registry editor, regedt32.
- Go to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}
-
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:
- Export the {20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D} key with the updated LocalizedString value to a .reg file.
- 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 - Put the .reg file out on a network share.
- 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.
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