The Campus Active Directory (AD) contains thousands of computer objects. A naming standard was established to prevent any two computers from having the same name. A computer name should look something like this.

ANRCSD-BjNoel

ANR - uniquely identifies the Department that the computer belongs to.

CSD - uniquely identifies your office within ANR (in this case CSD stands for Communication Services at Davis). Here is a listing that shows all the offices that are signed on to this service and their 3-character office names.

BjNoel - this 8-character maximum field uniquely identifies a computer within your office. Using a user's UC Davis ID is one way to name the computer, because it is always 8 characters or shorter and it is always unique. You can also choose the name based on a computer's location (e.g., ANRCSD-Room123) or function (e.g. ANRCSD-4H-1). You have complete control over this 8-character field. However, keep in mind that if you ever want to change the name, you will need to first unjoin the computer from the Domain, change the computer name, and then rejoin the computer to the Domain.

By default, we will use UC Davis Login IDs as the computer names for single-user PCs and we will use the computer's function as the computer names for multi-user PCs. Office Liaisons can choose a different naming scheme on the Liaison Checklist.