The attribute on AD computer objects netbootGuid is very important to allowing some deployment options (RIS and WDS) to locate the computer object the hardware belongs to. Unfortunately certain activities, such as replacing the system board, swapping in new hardware but using a pre-existing computer name, or creating a new VM using an existing VHD can invalidate the accuracy of the netbootGuid attribute stored in AD.
I wrote the script below (more precisely cobbled together since my VBScript is very rusty) to automatically check to make sure the netbootGuid is correct and update it if it isn't. This script can be deployed as a startup script via Group Policies to ensure every time the computer boots, the netbootGuid will be updated if needed. However, in order for this to work, the ACLs on the computer objects must be changed to allow SELF to write to the netbootGuid property.
References (from whence I cobbled):
- How to prestage an RIS client computer by using ADSI
- Working with Binary Data (GUIDs) in VBScript
- Eric Lippert's Blog
Note: I'm not entirely fond of having to write out to a temp file to turn the GUID into a byte array. But it works. I'm open to feedback on alternate methods as to how I can rewrite the function baConvertGuidToByteArray without writing out to the temporary file. Thanks in advance.
Note: Updated code 1/6/2014 based on comment below.
<VBScript>
'http://support.microsoft.com/kb/302467'The sample uses WMI to return the UUID on the system.'If a UUID can not be found on the system it returns all F's.'What RIS does in this case is it uses a zero'd out version of the MAC 'address of the NIC the machine is booting off of. 'This sample will return the value required to set the 'netbootGUID attributeOption ExplicitCall UpdateNetbootGuid(guidGetUUID, szGetDn)Function guidGetUUIDDim SystemSet, SystemItem, NetworkAdapterSet, NetworkAdapterSet SystemSet = GetObject("winmgmts:").InstancesOf ("Win32_ComputerSystemProduct")ForEach SystemItem In SystemSetIf SystemItem.UUID = "FFFFFFFF-FFFF-FFFF-FFFF-FFFFFFFFFFFF"ThenSet NetworkAdapterSet = GetObject("winmgmts:").InstancesOf ("Win32_NetworkAdapter")ForEach NetworkAdapter In NetworkAdapterSetIf NetworkAdapter.AdapterType = "Ethernet 802.3"And NetworkAdapter.Description <> "Packet Scheduler Miniport"Then guidGetUUID = "00000000-0000-0000-0000-"& Replace(NetworkAdapter.MACAddress, ":", "")EndIfNextElse guidGetUUID = SystemItem.UUIDEndIfNextEndFunctionFunction szGetDNDim objSysInfo Set objSysInfo = CreateObject("ADSystemInfo")'Set DN to upper Case szGetDN = UCase(objSysInfo.ComputerName)EndFunctionSub UpdateNetbootGuid(guidUUID, szComputerDn)Dim oComputer'Get parentcontainerSet oComputer = GetObject("LDAP://"& szComputerDn)If ByteArrayToGuid(oComputer.netbootGuid) <> guidUUID Then oComputer.Put "netbootGuid", baConvertGuidToByteArray(guidUUID) oComputer.SetInfoEndIf'Clean upSet oComputer = NothingEndSubFunction ByteArrayToGuid(arrbytOctet)IfNot IsEmpty(arrbytOctet) Then ByteArrayToGuid = _ Right("0"& Hex(AscB(MidB(arrbytOctet, 4, 1))), 2) & _ Right("0"& Hex(AscB(MidB(arrbytOctet, 3, 1))), 2) & _ Right("0"& Hex(AscB(MidB(arrbytOctet, 2, 1))), 2) & _ Right("0"& Hex(AscB(MidB(arrbytOctet, 1, 1))), 2) & _"-"& _ Right("0"& Hex(AscB(MidB(arrbytOctet, 6, 1))), 2) & _ Right("0"& Hex(AscB(MidB(arrbytOctet, 5, 1))), 2) & _"-"& _ Right("0"& Hex(AscB(MidB(arrbytOctet, 8, 1))), 2) & _ Right("0"& Hex(AscB(MidB(arrbytOctet, 7, 1))), 2) & _"-"& _ Right("0"& Hex(AscB(MidB(arrbytOctet, 9, 1))), 2) & _ Right("0"& Hex(AscB(MidB(arrbytOctet, 10, 1))), 2) & _"-"& _ Right("0"& Hex(AscB(MidB(arrbytOctet, 11, 1))), 2) & _ Right("0"& Hex(AscB(MidB(arrbytOctet, 12, 1))), 2) & _ Right("0"& Hex(AscB(MidB(arrbytOctet, 13, 1))), 2) & _ Right("0"& Hex(AscB(MidB(arrbytOctet, 14, 1))), 2) & _ Right("0"& Hex(AscB(MidB(arrbytOctet, 15, 1))), 2) & _ Right("0"& Hex(AscB(MidB(arrbytOctet, 16, 1))), 2)EndIfEndFunctionFunction baConvertGuidToByteArray(ByVal strHexString)Dim fso, stream, temp, ts, n, szScrubbedStringSet fso = CreateObject ("scripting.filesystemobject") Set stream = CreateObject ("adodb.stream")Const TemporaryFolder = 2 temp = fso.GetSpecialFolder(TemporaryFolder) & fso.gettempname () Set ts = fso.createtextfile (temp) szScrubbedString = Replace(strHexString, "-", "") ts.write Chr("&h"& Mid(szScrubbedString, 7, 2)) ts.write Chr("&h"& Mid(szScrubbedString, 5, 2)) ts.write Chr("&h"& Mid(szScrubbedString, 3, 2)) ts.write Chr("&h"& Mid(szScrubbedString, 1, 2)) ts.write Chr("&h"& Mid(szScrubbedString, 11, 2)) ts.write Chr("&h"& Mid(szScrubbedString, 9, 2)) ts.write Chr("&h"& Mid(szScrubbedString, 15, 2)) ts.write Chr("&h"& Mid(szScrubbedString, 13, 2)) ts.write Chr("&h"& Mid(szScrubbedString, 17, 2)) ts.write Chr("&h"& Mid(szScrubbedString, 19, 2)) ts.write Chr("&h"& Mid(szScrubbedString, 21, 2)) ts.write Chr("&h"& Mid(szScrubbedString, 23, 2)) ts.write Chr("&h"& Mid(szScrubbedString, 25, 2)) ts.write Chr("&h"& Mid(szScrubbedString, 27, 2)) ts.write Chr("&h"& Mid(szScrubbedString, 29, 2)) ts.write Chr("&h"& Mid(szScrubbedString, 31, 2)) ts.close stream.type = 1 stream.open stream.loadfromfile temp baConvertGuidToByteArray = stream.read stream.close fso.deletefile temp Set stream = NothingSet fso = NothingEnd Function
</VBScript>