Windows 2000 Administration in a Nutshell

Name

Local Users and Groups — PP

Synopsis

Creates and manages local users and local groups on a Windows 2000 member server or a Windows 2000 Professional workstation.

Description

Local users are user accounts that exist in the security database of the local computer; similarly, local groups are groups that exist only on the local computer. On Windows 2000 Server computers configured as member servers, you can use local users and groups to grant permissions and rights on the computer, but their usefulness is limited to workgroup settings. When in a domain environment, use domain user accounts, global groups, and domain local groups instead, which you can create and manage using the Active Directory Users and Computers console discussed earlier in this chapter. For more information see local user account and local group .

For administrators familiar with Windows NT 4.0 Server, the Local Users and Groups snap-in performs functions similar to those provided by the NT administrative tool called User Manager.

Using Local Users and Groups

You can access Local Users and Groups by either:

• Start → Programs → Administrative Tools → Computer Management → System Tools → Local Users and Groups

• Installing the Local Users and Groups snap-in into a new or existing console

The console tree looks like this:

Local Users and Groups Users Groups

The two subnodes are as follows:

Users

Contains built-in local user accounts, plus additional local user accounts that you create. The built-in local user accounts typically ...