Changing Computer Owner and Organization in the Registry

When organizations rebrand, merge, or reimage machines from a common source, the registered owner and organization fields often end up wrong. Here's how to fix it properly.

Registry path:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion

Values to modify:

• RegisteredOwner (REG_SZ) — the user/owner name
• RegisteredOrganization (REG_SZ) — the company name

PowerShell approach (modern):

Set-ItemProperty -Path 'HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion' -Name 'RegisteredOwner' -Value 'Harry Caskey'
Set-ItemProperty -Path 'HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion' -Name 'RegisteredOrganization' -Value 'Caskey Consulting'

At scale: Use Group Policy Preferences (GPP) to push these values to all domain-joined machines, or set them in your deployment task sequence / answer file (unattend.xml).

Security note: Registry changes require local admin privileges. In a hardened environment, use endpoint management tools (Intune, MECM) rather than giving users admin rights to modify system keys.