Set local Admin password via GPO 1

[Daveyd123]

I know you can rename the local administrator account for all workstations in Group Policy...can you also set a password for the local admin account in a GPO?

 

[itsp1965]

Actually yes you can. In the domain policy you can modify the administrator account name and it will propagate to all domain clients.

 

[Daveyd123]

The only thing I see in the Default Domain Policy GPO is the ability to rename the local admin account under Computer Configuration-->Windows Settings-->Security Settings-->Local Policies-->Security Options

 

[porkchopexpress]

http://www.computerperformance.co.uk/Litmus/security.htm

 

[Daveyd123]

Thanks for the link...but that does not show me how to set a password for the local admin account in a GPO.

I have renamed the local admin account using a GPO...but...I now want to set a password for it for all computers in the domain using a GPO

 

[NFI]

I don't know this for a fact, but I doubt whether you could do this, as it would surely mean maintaining a password in plain text within the GPO schema somewhere - I wouldn't have thought M$ would allow that...

Paul

 

[porkchopexpress]

Sorry, this is what i use to change passwords on our 400 stations. As far as i know MS don't provide a way to do this other than WMI.

http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/PsPasswd.html

 

[porkchopexpress]

Example of how i do it. Put a list of computer names that need the password resetting in the test.txt file, then put the line below into a bat file (change the exe path appropriatly) or just use the run command.

D:\pspasswd.exe @D:\LocalPasswords\test.txt Administrator password

 

[Daveyd123]

Thanks for the replies. It seems that all of our local administrator passwords are blank. I didnt feel like going around to 500+ computers and resetting the local admin password

 

[porkchopexpress]

lol yes i've had the same when a load of new PC's turned up that the supplier had ghosted, they all had a blank local admin password.

DOH!

 

[anthonymeluso]

porkchopexpress,

How should one write the computer names in the text file.

Is it \\computername or computername?

Thanks though for that awsome little app.

Anthony

 

[porkchopexpress]

Well you should thank the generous Mark Russinovich for creating the app

Just list the computer names on seperate lines without slashes e.g

PC1
PC2
PC3

Cheers.

 

[bence8810]

Hi

What a great tool, thanks for posting it here. Only one question:

What port does it use to access the computer? When the SP2 firewall is turned on, it will refuse to change the password, saying that the network address cannot be found. When I turn off the Firewall, the thing changes password in less than a sec....

Thanks

Benedek

 

[bence8810]

Talked too soon, thought later. I enabled File and Printer sharing as an Exception in the Firewall settings, and all goes well now.

Awesome find I have to say again..

Thanks

Benedek

 

[porkchopexpress]

No probs.

Cheers.

 

[Daveyd123]

I found a script that looks pretty awesome. I haven't tried it out yet...

http://www.adminscripteditor.com/scriptlibrary/view.asp?id=453

 

[jkupski]

Microsoft has a tool in the Windows 2000 Resource Kit to do this called cusrmgr.exe

See

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;272530

for more information.

 

[Daveyd123]

I am in an XP/Server 2003 enviorment. I dont know if the above link will work

 

[JakeVS]

That Russinovich fellow writes some awesome tools - I'd use his pspasswd anyday before I'd try m$'s cusrmgr!

 

[porkchopexpress]

If you look at some MS KB articles they quite often recommend his tools.