Discover a User's Computer Name

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In Reader to Reader: "Computer Name Batch Files" (August 2000), Todd O. Klindt provides a helpful method to discover users' computer names. I also have the dreaded task of getting new users to give me their computer names or IP addresses, and I've developed the following procedure to discover this information.

From a command prompt, use the Windows 2000 and Windows NT Net View command to display a list of computers in the domain in which your workstation is a member. You can use the Find command to parse through the list of names.

For example, we name computers in our domain by geographical location and serial number (e.g., BTR-D12345), and our users' names appear in the description textbox in the Control Panel Server applet (e.g., Joe Piscopo). Therefore, you can use the following example at a command prompt or in a batch file to discover a user's computer:

net view | find "Joe" ORnet view | find "345"

As the following example shows, you can also use the Net View utility to query other NT domains:

net view/domain:Hello.kitty.com | find "Dog"

However, this method is handy only if you know some of the user's information.

—William P. Sellers
[email protected]