How do you enforce consistent naming with Autopilot when it doesn’t always stick?

Hello Veil,

The issue comes from the fact that Autopilot naming policies are applied only after the Intune MDM profile is processed, which means the device boots with its default Windows-generated hostname first. That’s why you see “DESKTOP-ABCDE” before Intune renames it. To enforce the %SERIAL% convention from the very first boot, you need to shift the naming logic into the provisioning stage rather than relying solely on Intune. The most reliable way is to use a pre-provisioned Autopilot deployment with a configuration profile that includes the naming policy, or embed the hostname assignment in your deployment task sequence via MDT/ConfigMgr using OSDComputerName=%SERIAL% before the OS specialization phase. If you’re strictly cloud-only, the workaround is limited: Intune will always rename after enrollment, so the initial boot name will not match until the policy applies. In that case, the best practice is to accept the temporary default and ensure your asset management system waits for the Intune rename event before ingesting the device record. There is no supported method to override Windows’ initial random hostname generation prior to Autopilot enrollment.

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Harry.