You can easily rename Windows devices using Intune admin center remotely. When you take this action, the device name will change in Intune, Microsoft Entra ID, and also on the device itself.
There are many use cases for this option:
- For example, you are using an autopilot deployment profile to configure device hostnames based on a specific template. After you have deployed devices via Auto-pilot, you can rename devices if you want.
- If there are special devices in your organization for specific purposes like Processing Batch Jobs or Running Specific Applications and you want to reflect the same in the name of the devices. You can rename it via Intune.
As of now you can rename following type of devices using Intune admin center:
Source: Microsoft
- Android Enterprise:
- Corporate-owned work profiles
- Dedicated devices
- Fully managed
- iOS/iPadOS supervised devices with iOS 9.3 and later
- macOS 10 – Corporate-owned devices
- Windows – Corporate-owned devices
- Corporate-owned co-managed devices that are Azure AD joined.
There are a number of ways to rename a Windows device. However, today we are going to see the steps for option 1 and 2 which is by using the Intune admin center and also manually from the device.
- Using Microsoft Intune admin center
- Rename a device hostname on the device itself
- Using Microsoft Entra admin center
- Using Powershell
Table of Contents
Steps to rename a Windows device using Intune admin center
Please follow below steps to rename a Windows device using Intune admin center.
- Login on Microsoft Intune admin center
- Click on Devices > All Devices
- Search for the device you want to rename and click on it to manage.
- After you click on the device, you will find information about the device for example: Device serial number, Primary User, Operating System, etc.
- You can click on three dots on the right [please refer to below screenshot] and then select Rename device to Rename this device. Make sure that the number of characters should be 15 or less. There are other guidelines when naming a Windows device which are listed below:
Device Rename guidelines:
- 15 characters or less
- Letters (a-z, A-Z), numbers (0-9), and hyphens. Names must not contain only numbers.
- No spaces or special characters.
Tokens can be used to add device-specific values to the name:
- Add {{serialnumber}} to add the device’s serial number to the name
- Add {{rand:x}} to add a random string of numbers, where x equals the number of digits to add.
- Enter a new name for the device. In my case. I am simply adding additional characters to the name of my desktop [please refer to screenshot] and making sure the total number of characters is not more than 15 and device naming guidelines are followed.
- I will be selecting Restart after rename as without restarting, the device will not be renamed. You can select No to skip device restart after rename operation and later point in time you can manually restart the device yourself.
- As you can see from below screenshot, A notification appears on the portal which confirms that a restart has been initiated.
Sync Intune Policies
The device check-in process might not begin immediately. If you’re testing this policy on a test device, you can manually kickstart the Intune sync either from the device itself or remotely through the Intune admin center.
Alternatively, you can use PowerShell to force the Intune sync on Windows devices. Another way to trigger the Intune device check-in process is by restarting the device.
End-user Experience
- When the device rename policy kicks in, user will see below pop-up message. “You’re about to be signed out, Your device administrator has scheduled a reboot“. This pop-up is because of the configuration when renaming the device which is “Restart after rename” to Yes.
- User will get around 2 minutes before the device will reboot.
- Device Restarted.
- After device is rebooted, you can log in on the device and use below steps to check if the device hostname has been updated.
- Press Win + R key together to open Run dialog box.
- Type sysdm.cpl to open System Properties.
- Check Full computer name to make sure it’s renamed.
Steps to rename a Windows device manually
Use the below steps to rename a Windows device manually.
- Press Win + R key together to open Run dialog box.
- Type sysdm.cpl to open System Properties.
- Click on Change button under Computer name tab to rename a device. Make sure to follow the device renaming guidelines when renaming a device.
- Restart the device to complete this change.
When you rename a device manually and restart the device, New device name should be automatically updated on Microsoft Entra ID and Intune admin center.
Conclusion
In this blog post, we have seen how to rename a device using Intune admin center and also manually. Renaming a device via Intune remotely is a useful feature that will help IT administrators. There is no requirement for Powershell scripts or any complex procedure to rename a device. Rename option which is provided for Device management does the job for you.
