When Lansweeper scans an asset, it automatically tries to determine the asset's type: Linux, Unix, Mac or Windows computer, VMware server, NAS, printer, switch etc. It does this by looking at open ports and information pulled from the following protocols: Bonjour, DNS-SD, FTP, HTTP, HTTPS, JetDirect, mDNS, SIP, SMTP, SNMP (SNMPv1, SNMPv2 or SNMPv3), SSDP, SSH, Telnet, UPnP and WMI.

You may at times want to override scanned asset type information, however. There are two ways you can do this: by manually editing the asset or by remapping the asset's OID. Remapping is useful if you have many assets of the same model whose type you want to change.

You cannot change a Windows computer's type. An asset is automatically identified as Windows if port 135 is open on the asset and if you've submitted a valid credential. For Active Directory objects, the operatingSystem attribute is also used to determine whether the asset is Windows or non-Windows. If the attribute is blank or includes the words "Windows" or "Hyper", the asset is deemed to be a Windows computer.

Many asset type names and icons are built-in. You can also add your own however.

Manually changing asset types

To manually override the scanned asset type of one or more assets at once, do one of the following:

• Browse to the asset's Lansweeper page and hit Edit asset on the left, under Asset options. Select an asset type from the dropdown and make sure the box next to the dropdown is checked, indicating that your changes won't be overridden during scanning. Then hit Save asset on the left.
  
• Click the Assets link at the top of the web console and hit the Mass Edit Mode button on the left, under Options. Place your cursor in the Type column, select an asset type from the dropdown and hit Ok.
  
• Click the Assets link at the top of the web console, tick the checkboxes in front of the assets of your choice and hit the Edit Fields button on the left, under Asset Actions. In the resulting popup, select the Asset Type field, choose your preferred asset type for the assets you selected and hit Change Field(s)
  
  - You can perform a search on one or more columns to easily find specific assets. In the example above, we filtered the Type column to only list music systems.
  - You could also tick the checkbox at the very top to select all assets in the current search results.

Changing asset types by remapping OIDs

To automatically have assets reassigned to your preferred asset type based on their OID, those assets must support SNMP. Do the following:

1. Browse to an asset's Lansweeper page and copy the OID listed on the page. If there is none, the asset either does not support SNMP or SNMP could not be scanned, e.g. due to the submitted SNMP community string being incorrect. If there is no OID, you could rescan the asset using a different community string or manually change the asset's type as explained previously.
   
2. Browse to the following section of the web console: Configuration\Asset Mapping
   
3. Paste the OID into the SNMP OID search box, found in the Device SNMP OID lookup section of the page. We want to verify whether the OID is already present in our database.
   
4. If there is a search result, the OID is present in your database and you can simply change the asset type assigned to it by selecting a different option from the Type dropdown. You can change the model assigned to the OID by placing your cursor in the Model column, making the necessary change and hitting Enter while your cursor is still present in the line. Keep in mind that the model name you submit here is only used for a device if one cannot be scanned from the device itself.
   
5. If there are no search results, the OID is not present in your database. You can add it by hitting the Add SNMP OID button. Paste the OID into the SNMP OID field of the popup window, select an option from the Devicetype dropdown, type the asset's model in the Model field and hit Ok. Keep in mind that the model name you submit here is only used for a device if one cannot be scanned from the device itself.
   
6. Make sure your devices are submitted for scheduled scanning under Scanning\Scanning Targets. Any asset with a mapped OID will automatically be assigned the asset type of your choice, when the asset is rescanned.