Controlling User Accounts From the Command Line

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Controlling user accounts from the

command lineByJohn SheesleyFebruary 20, 2001, 12:00 AM PST

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If you cut your teeth on DOS, then you may not always like to use aGUI to do things. Windows NT and 2000 both allow you to performadministrative tasks such as dealing with users from the commandline. John Sheesley shows you how.

As a network administrator, you spend a lot of time managing user accounts on your

network. Microsoft provides some nice GUI tools in Windows NT and Windows 2000 to help

you administer your users; however, sometimes these things can be done more efficiently

from the command line. In this Daily Feature, Ill show youhow you can administer user

accounts from the command line using the Net User command.

Your wish is my command

Lets face it, GUIs are designed to be easy to use, not necessarily to be efficient. How do

you access a user account in Windows NT? Click Start. Click Programs. Click

Administrative Tools (Common). Click User Manager For Domains. Click the user. If youwant to do anything to the user, keep clicking. Click. Double-click. Right-click. Left-click.

Click, click, click. Almost as much clicking as a tap dancer putting on a show. And Windows

2000 isnt much better.

Fortunately, you can save your clicking finger by taking a quick trip to the command line.

Thats only two clicks. Click Start. Click Run. Typecmdand press [Enter].

At the command line you can use one simple commandNet User. The Net User command

can do almost all of the same things to users that you can do using the User Manager For

Domains in Windows NT or Users And Computers in Windows 2000. Net User works the

same way on both Windows NT and Windows 2000.

Casting your net

Although any user can use the Net User command, the user must have Administrator rights

in order to do anything to anyone else using the command. Therefore, before you drop to

the command prompt to use the command, make sure youre logged on as Administrator or

as a user with Administrator rights.
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When you launch the command prompt, type net userand press [Enter]. When you do,

youll see all of the users on the network.

If you want to view detailed information about an individual user, type net user

usernameand press [Enter]. Just replace usernamewith the name of the user you wantinformation on. When you do, youll see a listing on the screen like this:

User name jsheesley

Full Name John Sheesley

Comment

User's comment

Country code 000 (System Default)

Account active Yes

Account expires Never

Password last set 12/19/2000 4:18 PM

Password expires 3/31/2001 3:05 PM

Password changeable 12/19/2000 4:18 PM

Password required Yes

User may change password Yes

Workstations allowed All

Logon script

User profile

Home directory

Last logon 2/13/2001 11:41 AM

Logon hours allowed All

Local Group Memberships *Administrators *Users

Global Group Memberships *None

The command completed successfully.

Net User includes other command line switches you can use to affect user accounts on your

network. When you enter the command in conjunction with the switches, make sure you

specify the username you want to affect. To view all of the switches, type net help userandpress [Enter]. These switches include:

PasswordThis switch changes the users password. Type the new password rightafter the username switch (for example, net user jsheesley MyNewPassword).If you

follow the username switch with a space and *, after you press [Enter], Windows will

present you with a prompt to enter the password. The password wont display when you

type it at a password prompt.


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/DOMAINPerforms the operation on a domain controller of the current domain. /ADDAdds a user account to the user accounts database. /DELETERemoves a user account from the user accounts database. /ACTIVE:Type/ACTIVE:YESto activate the account./ACTIVE:NOdeactivates the

account.

/COMMENT:textYou can use this command to provide a comment about the user.You can enter up to 48 characters as a description. Make sure you enclose the

comment in quotation marks.

/COUNTRYCODE:This switch allows you to change the operating system countrycode for the user. This will cause Windows to implement a language file for a user's help

and error messages. A value of 0 signifies the default country code.

/EXPIRES:This switch allows you to set an expiration date for the user. You caneither enter a date in mm/dd/yyyy format or enter a value of NEVER. NEVER sets no

expiration for the account.

/FULLNAME:"name"This switch changes the user's full name, not the username.Replacenamewith the usersname enclosed in quotation marks.

/HOMEDIR:pathnameThis switch sets the path (pathname)for the user's homedirectory. The path must already exist for the switch to work properly.

/PASSWORDCHG:If you type /PASSWORDCHG:YES, users can change their ownpasswords. Conversely, setting it to NO disables password changing. The default is

YES.

/PASSWORDREQ:This switch specifies whether a user account must have apassword. The default is YES, but you can type/PASSWORDREQ:NOto disable

passwords for the account.

/PROFILEPATH:pathnameThis switch sets a path for the user's logon profile. /SCRIPTPATH:pathnameThis switch sets the location of the user's logon script. /TIMES:This switch allows you to set the users logon hours. If you set the value to

ALL, the user can always log on. The syntax is reasonably complicated if you want to

set available logon times. Times can only be expressed in one-hour increments. Starting

times/days and ending times/days are separated by a dash (-). Days, and times in the

same day, are separated by a comma (,). Multiple day/time combinations are separated

by a semicolon (;). This might be a setting that would be more efficient using a GUI.

/USERCOMMENT:"text"This switch sets the User Comment field shown above. Dontconfuse it with the Comment switch just mentioned.

/WORKSTATIONS:This switch allows you to specify workstation names the user canlog in from. By default, a user can use any workstation. You can specify this explicitly by

following this switch with an asterisk (*). To limit a user, type in individual workstationnames. You can enter as many as eight workstation names, separating each one with a

comma.

Conclusion

GUIs can be useful to make your job easier, but in the process, they may make you less

efficient. You can do some tasks, like administering user accounts, directly from the


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command line. In this Daily Feature, I showed you how to administer user accounts using

the Net User command.

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Controlling User Accounts From the Command Line