Play .MKV’s in Windows Media Center (WMC)

For a long time I had resisted converting my DVD and Blu-Ray disks into any other format because I didn’t want to lose any quality.  I had lived by this rule for a long time, and thankfully companies like QNAP and Thecus came to my storage rescue.  However, the day has come where the cost of storing all the extra garbage that comes along with these movies has opened my eyes to benefits conversions.  With that, I have began converting my movie collection to a format that allows me to lose all the excess fat, but keep my movie loss-less. Read More…

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People like to customize things.  With that said, I ran across an individual that had an issue with his WHS.  He imaged his existing hard drive to a larger hard drive, but was left with the original disk name in the Windows Home Server Console.  This poses no problems, but is more of an annoyance than anything.  If you want to change the name, you can.

To change the name that appears in the Windows Home Server Console, you are going to have to modify your registry.

NOTE: Editing the Registry incorrectly can cause serious, system-wide problems that may require you to re-install Windows Home Server to correct them. Microsoft nor computingondemand.com cannot guarantee that any problems resulting from the use of Registry editing can be solved. Back up your registry first, but use at your own risk.

You are going to need to do this work from your WHS and the easiest way for this is to initiate a Remote Desktop connection to your home server.  This will allow you to work on your Home Server as if there were a monitor, keyboard, and mouse attached to it.

  1. Start
  2. Run
  3. Type Regedit
  4. Press OK

They key you are looking to modify is under [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Home Server\Storage Manager\Disks\xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx\Attributes] and called ManufactureName

Double click on the ManufactureName and change the value to whatever you want.  Remember, I only have one drive so there is only one time I have to do this. If you have more than one drive, you will see multiple entries under Disks.

My Original:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Home Server\Storage Manager\Disks\xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx\Attributes]

"ManufactureName"="WDC WD1600SB-01RFA0"

My Modified:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Home Server\Storage Manager\Disks\xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx\Attributes]

"ManufactureName"="Computing on Demand Rules"

Close the Registry Editor, reboot, then open your Windows Home Server Console to see your changes.

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Joe DiFiglia has written 226 Articles at C.O.D.


In early 2000 I became increasingly frustrated with hardware review sites praising less than satisfactory products. The saying: “if you want something done right, do it yourself” applies here. I wasn’t satisfied, so I did it myself; and here we are years later.

6 Responses to Change the Name of Your Hard Drives WHS

  1. Greg Zeng says:

    Change the Name of Your Hard Drives … does not work with Win7-32 Ultimate. Easier way to use regedit is to use the inbuilt FIND value of the program.

  2. Gilliemac says:

    How can I do the same for Windows XP ?

    Change the HDD name in the registry, as I have a bug which changes the HDD name every time I boot up it restarts the PC and changes the HDD name !

  3. asd says:

    Great Thanks!

  4. malkie says:

    Thanks very much for this, worked a treat for me.