How to: Change computername in Windows Explorer on Windows Server 2012 R2

When you’re are using a lot of virtual machines or environments, it’s somethimes realy usefull to see in what environment or on what server you’re logged in. If created a really nice solution for my servers, basically Remote Desktop Services in different environments, that does exact my I need! I’ve changed the displayname in Windows Explorer to the value “user on server”, for example: “mark on prod-rds-01”.

You can set this new value with Group Policy Preferences or some other scripting.

1.) Create a new GPO in the Group Policy Management Console
2.) Navigate to “User Configuration / Preferences / Windows Settings / Registry
3.) Create a new registry item and browse to the following registry key:
HKCU/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Explorer/CLSID/{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}
4.) Change the default REG_SZ value to “%username% on %computername%”
5.) Login to the specific server where you targeted the GPO and open Windows Explorer
6.) The name of your computer has changed to “username on computername”

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How to: Configure a “Boot to desktop” group policy for Windows 8.1

New in Windows 8.1 is the “Boot to Desktop” feature, where the user can choose not to boot to the Windows Tiles, but directly to the desktop! That’s a really nice feature if you ask me! How can we centrally configure and manage these feature for all my users or just a group of users? Exactly, through a group policy with User Preferences. It’s a user settings, so you could also use RES Workspace Manager for example.

1.) Navigate to your Group Policy Management Console
2.) Create a new Group Policy and disable the Computer Settings
3.) Open the policy and navigate to User Configuration / Preferences / Windows Settings / Registry
4.) Create a new Registry Item
5.)  Choose for Hive “HKEY_CURRENT_USER” and Navigate in the Key Path to:
Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\StartPage
6.) The Value name is “OpenAtLogon
6.) Choose the Value type “REG_DWORD
7) The Value data is:
Boots to Desktop = “0”
Boots to Start Menu = “1”
8.) Attach the group policy to a organizational unit(s) and login to your Windows 8.1 machine!

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