GPO for enabling the 'My Computer' icon on Win 7 desktops, and renaming it with the machine's hostname?

Question

Is there a GPO that can allow me to enable the My Computer icon on my Windows 7 SP1 Pro clients, as well as automatically renaming it from 'My Computer' to the actual hostname of the machine?

Answer 1

Even in Windows 7, there still isn’t a Group Policy setting that will let you add the ‘My Computer’ icon to the desktop (unless you forcibly change the Start Menu to Classic) and then change the name from My Computer to anything else. I am very
surprised this isn’t a setting but we can still modify the registry to achieve this (either inside a GPO or with a script):
To show the ‘My Computer’ icon on the desk"text-decoration:underline;">
[HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\HideDesktopIcons\NewStartPanel]
Name = {20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}
Type =REG_DWORD
Value = 0
To change the ‘My Computer’ icon to computer or user name:
[HKCR\CLSID\{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}]
Name = LocalizedString
Type = REG_EXPAND_SZ
Data value = %computername% or any combination you like – eg %username% %computername%
Don’t forget you will need to change the permissions / ownership on this registry key so that you can change it – by default even Administrators cannot modify it.
These both apply to Windows XP and 7 and Windows Server 2003 and 2008.
source:
http://blog.danovich.com.au/2010/02/18/add-my-computer-to-desktop-and-change-to-computer-name/
BR
Mads
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