Strange login name recorded in inventory

  • 7011992
  • 20-Mar-2013
  • 20-Mar-2013

Environment

Novell ZENworks Configuration Management 11.2 Inventory
Novell ZENworks Asset Management 11.2

Situation

A device inventory details show a strange value for the user login name.
Inventory details show a user name which does not correspond to any actual user login.


Resolution

This is working as desired.

Cause

If the inventory collector runs at times when no user is logged-in to a device, it collects the device local so-called PrimaryOwnerName information from Windows as login name, which might not reflect an actual user name.

Additional Information

The PrimaryOwnerName information is recorded in the Windows registry value:
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\RegisteredOwner


This is the device owner information inserted on Windows install.

The following command can be executed on the Windows command line to manually read the PrimaryOwnerName value:
wmic computersystem list brief /format:list