Is there an alias for the local machine name in the Windows 7 login screen?

Question

We have many computers connected to a AD. The computers names is auto generated. When I want to log in using a local account, I have to figure out what the computer's name is, and log in using the following syntax:

[COMPUTER_NAME]\local_account

Now I'm wondering if there is an alias that I can use instead?

So instead of logging in using NB-aw35sdds\local_account, I can use something like localhost\local_account.

Answer 1

Yes, I agree: they completely broke the login screen with Windows Vista. Unfortunately, Windows 7 didn't come to the rescue with a "classic logon" option like it did for most things broken in Vista.

As you imagined, though, there is a simple workaround. Instead of typing your computer name, you can use the following alias:

.\

So, you can simply type the following to log on to the local workstation:

.\UserName