Question

I’m trying to change a computer’s name (host name) on Windows 2000 using .NET 2.0. The computer is not joined to a domain.

Windows XP and higher provides the WMI method Win32_ComputerSystem.Rename, but this is not available in Windows 2000 (reference here).

I’m not averse to just calling an external program if I need to, but I also can’t seem to find one that works on Windows 2000. Searching on Google didn’t seem to turn up anything obvious.

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

I think the Windows API might be of help on Windows 2000: Use SetComputerNameEx:

BOOL WINAPI SetComputerNameEx(
  __in  COMPUTER_NAME_FORMAT NameType,
  __in  LPCTSTR lpBuffer
);

This sample is based on the sample on pinvoke.net:

public class RenameComputer
{
    [DllImport("kernel32.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Auto)]
    static extern bool SetComputerNameEx(COMPUTER_NAME_FORMAT NameType, string lpBuffer);

    enum COMPUTER_NAME_FORMAT
    {
        ComputerNameNetBIOS,
        ComputerNameDnsHostname,
        ComputerNameDnsDomain,
        ComputerNameDnsFullyQualified,
        ComputerNamePhysicalNetBIOS,
        ComputerNamePhysicalDnsHostname,
        ComputerNamePhysicalDnsDomain,
        ComputerNamePhysicalDnsFullyQualified,
    }

    //ComputerNamePhysicalDnsHostname used to rename the computer name and netbios name before domain join
    public static bool Rename(string name)
    {
        bool result = SetComputerNameEx(COMPUTER_NAME_FORMAT.ComputerNamePhysicalDnsHostname, name);
        if (!result)
            throw new Win32Exception();

        return result;
    }
}

In addition to p-invoking the WinAPI you might also use Process.Start in combination with the netsh command as described here.