Networking For Dummies, 12th Edition

Chapter 12

Managing Windows User Accounts

IN THIS CHAPTER

Understanding Active Directory

Examining user accounts

Creating user accounts

Setting account options

Working with groups

Creating a login script

Every user who accesses a network must have a user account. User accounts allow you — as network administrator — to control who can access the network and who can’t. In addition, user accounts let you specify what network resources each user can use. Without user accounts, all your resources would be open to anyone who casually dropped by your network.

User accounts are managed by Active Directory, the directory service used by Windows to manage all sorts of entities that exist on a network — not just users, but computers, printers, groups, and other types of objects as well.

This chapter gives you an overview of how Active Directory is organized. Then it dives into the details of ...