Start your free trial. How to rename or disable the Guest account. Rename the Guest account. Double-click the policy Rename guest account. Type the new Guest account name and click OK. Close the console. However, if the username or password on the remote system is different from that on the local system, the user is prompted with an authentication dialog box when he or she first attempts to connect to the remote system.
Two or more systems that use only their own local accounts being on a network creates what is called a workgroup , a kind of peer-to-peer network. You can imagine how difficult managing redundant accounts for a single user on two different systems might become.
If a user changes his or her password on one machine, he or she must remember to change it on the other; otherwise, the user is prompted for authentication at each connection. Such challenges would become multiplied many times over in a large workgroup with multiple users and multiple machines. Thus, networks of any size turn to a domain model, in which one or more servers, called domain controllers , maintain a centralized database of users and groups.
Security accounts in a domain are stored in the domain's Active Directory database. When a user is created in a domain, that single user account can be given privileges and permissions to resources and systems throughout the domain and in other domains within the enterprise's Active Directory database. Active Directory is covered in more detail in the "Understanding Active Directory" section later in this chapter.
Domain user and group accounts are stored within the Active Directory database for Windows Server and Windows Server domains only. In a domain, it is unusual and not a best practice to create or use local user accounts. Most computers that are members of a domain have only the local Administrator and Guest user accounts in their security databases. You can get to the snap-in by choosing Start, Settings, Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Computer Management and then by expanding the tree pane of the Computer Management console until you see snap-in.
In this snap-in, you can create, modify, duplicate, and delete users in the Users folder and groups in the Groups folder. As mentioned earlier in this chapter, there are two built-in user accounts: Administrator and Guest. The Administrator account. Has, through its membership in the Administrators group, all privileges required to perform system administration duties. Is disabled by default. Only a member of the Administrators group can enable the account. If the Guest account is enabled, it should be given a password, and User Cannot Change Password should be set if multiple users will log on with the account.
Built-in local groups have assigned to them specific privileges also called user rights that allow them to perform specific sets of tasks on a system. The following are the default local group accounts on a Windows Professional system:. They can create and modify user and group accounts, manage security policies, create printers, and manage permissions to resources on the system. The local Administrator account is the default member and cannot be removed.
Other accounts can be added and removed. When a system joins a domain, the Domain Admins group is added, but it can be removed. They can log on and shut down a system but cannot change security settings. They cannot modify user accounts they did not create, nor can they modify the Administrators or Backup Operators groups.
Members of the Power Users group cannot take ownership of files, back up or restore directories, load or unload device drivers, or manage the security and auditing logs. If you want certain users to have broad system administration capabilities but do not want them to be able to access all system resources, you should consider putting them in the Backup Operators and Power Users groups rather than in the Administrators group.
They cannot create local printers or share folders. Some older legacy applications do not run for members of the Users group because security settings are tighter for the Users group in Windows than in Windows NT 4. By default, all local user accounts you create are added to the Users group. In addition, when a system joins a domain, the Domain Users group is made a member of that system's local Users group. Members of the Guests group cannot make permanent changes to their desktops or profiles.
By default, the built-in local Guest account is a member of this group. When a system joins a domain, the Domain Guests group is added to the local Guests group. A Windows Professional system also has built-in s ystem groups, which you do not see in the user interface while managing other group accounts.
Membership of system groups changes based on how the computer is being accessed or utilized, not based on who is accessing the computer. Built-in system groups are also referred to as special identity groups and include the following:. You should use the Authenticated Users group rather than the Everyone group to assign privileges and group permissions because doing so prevents anonymous access to resources. If the user is a member of the Administrators group, the Creator Owner group is the owner of the resource.
To create a local user or group account, you right-click the appropriate folder Users or Groups and choose New User or New Group , enter the appropriate attributes, and then click Create. They are not case sensitive, although the user account's name property displays the case as entered.
You should determine a policy for accommodating users who have the same name. For example, you can add a number after the username for example, JohnD1 , JohnD2. Some organizations also identify certain types of users by their usernames for example, JohnDoe-Temp for a temporary employee. They can contain up to characters, although down-level operating systems such as Windows NT 4 and Windows 9x support only character passwords.
They should be difficult to guess and, preferably, should mix uppercase and lowercase letters, numerals, and nonalphanumeric characters other than those listed previously as being prohibited.
They can be set by the administrator who can then determine whether users must, can, or cannot change their passwords or the user if the administrator has not specified otherwise.
From the Local Users and Groups node of the Computer Management console, or from the Active Directory Users and Computers console on a domain controller, you can select User Must Change Password at Next Logon to ensure that the user is the only one who knows the account's password. You can select User Cannot Change Password when more than one person such as the Guest user account uses the account. The Password Never Expires option is helpful when a program or a service uses an account.
To avoid having to reconfigure the service with a new password, you can simply set the service's account to retain its password indefinitely. The information you can specify when creating an account is limited in Windows Therefore, after you create an account, you often need to go to the account's properties sheet, which you can access by right-clicking the account and choosing Properties.
Figure 3. To manage the membership of a local group, you right-click the group and choose Properties. To remove a member, you select the account and click Remove. To add a member, you click Add and select or enter the name of the account.
In a workgroup, local groups can contain only accounts defined in the same machine's local security database. When a system belongs to a domain, its local groups can also include domain accounts, including user accounts, universal groups, and global groups from the enterprise's Active Directory database, as well as domain local groups from within the system's domain.
Universal groups and domain local groups can be added as members only when the domain is in native mode, meaning that it contains only Windows domain controllers and no legacy that is, Windows NT 4. To rename an account, you right-click the account and choose Rename.
Then you type the new name and press Enter. Each user and group account is represented in the local security database by a long, unique string called a security identifier SID , which is generated when the account is created.
The SID is what is actually assigned permissions and privileges. The user or group name is just a user-friendly "face" on that process. Therefore, when you rename an account, the account's SID remains the same, so the account retains all its group memberships, permissions, and privileges. Two situations mandate renaming an account.
The first occurs when one user stops using a system and a new user requires the same access as the first. Rather than create a new local user account for the new user, you can simply rename the old user account.
The account's SID remains the same, so its group memberships, privileges, and permissions are retained. You should also specify a new password in the account's properties sheet and select the User Must Change Password at Next Logon option. The easiest way to "replace" a user is to rename the account. Therefore, when one user leaves and another requires the same group memberships, rights, and resource access permissions as the first, you can simply rename the former user's account.
You should not forget to reset the account's password because the new user won't otherwise know the old user's password. The second situation that warrants renaming a user account is the security practice of renaming the built-in Administrator and Guest accounts. You cannot delete these accounts, nor can you disable or remove the Administrator account from the Local Administrators group, so renaming the accounts is a recommended practice for hindering malicious access to a system.
To disable or enable a user account, you open its properties sheet and select or clear the Account Is Disabled check box. If an account is disabled, a user cannot log on to the system by using that account.
The Administrator account cannot be disabled, and only administrators can enable the Guest account. Good tip. Helped me to enable guest account on windows 7 machines from a batch file. Reply Link. I could disable guest account from cmd on my windows 8 system. I am getting the below error when I tried this command. Access is denied. Good evening!
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