Question

Domain Admin doesn't have local admin access

Asked by: lukerussell

I have a problem I have never encountered before. I have a 2003 server on a site and one of the domain users needs local admin access to use the new Adobe reader. Usually I can easily go into users on that workstation, enter my domain admin credentials and add the domain user as a local administrator.

The strange thing is, on this workstation, when I log on as the domain administrator in "users", I get the message "you are logged in as DOMAIN\Administrator. This user does not have administration rights... blah blah blah. So it's like the domain administrator does not have local admin access on that workstation. To make matters worse, I don't know the password to the local administrator account, so I can't get in that way... All the other PC's on the domain let the domain admin in, so why not this one all of a sudden? Any suggestions?

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Asked On
2007-02-14 at 17:35:37ID22390385
Tags

rights

,

password

Topic

Windows 2003 Server

Participating Experts
3
Points
500
Comments
13

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Answers

 

by: Netman66Posted on 2007-02-14 at 18:13:19ID: 18537452

Easy.

Create a temporary OU.
Move that computer into it.
In a new GPO linked to that OU you want to configure Restricted Groups like so:

Right click Restricted Groups.
Select New Group.
Browse to the Domain Admins group.
Add it.
In the next window, on the bottom half of the tab select Add beside "this group is a member of"
Manually type Administrators.
Ok your way out.

The computer should now have the Domain Admin group in the local Administrators group.

At this point you can move the computer back after resetting the local Administrator password.
If the DA group is once again removed then you can use the local Admin account to replace it.

 

by: wparrottPosted on 2007-02-14 at 18:18:25ID: 18537474

Hello lukerussell,

Since you don't know the local admin's password, the first step you should take is to reset the local admin password. Follow this link:
http://www.petri.co.il/forgot_administrator_password.htm#1

Download the tool (there is a floppy and cd version) and use it to reset the local admin password.

After you re-gain admin-level access make sure that the computer is part of your domain. If it's still in the domain, add the domain admin account to the local admin group.

If you are using GPO's and someone sets the 'restricted users' property improperly the domain admin account could be removed from the local admins group.

HTH,

William

 

by: Netman66Posted on 2007-02-14 at 18:38:57ID: 18537557

Restricted Groups can be used in two ways: 1) to enforce membership of a group, 2) to add to a membership of a group.  I've instructed to Add - so there's no chance of removing needed entries.  

This can be done remotely (as I gathered the poster is), whereas resetting the local Admin password requires you to be in front of the PC.

Most of the time this happens because someone is in the Admin group and removes all the other entries so nobody else can access the machine as Admin.  It's not good practice to give people Admin rights.

I haven't seen Adobe Reader NOT run as a regular user.  Install it as Admin and run it once.  That's all that should be necessary.

There are other ways to make non-compliant software behave for normal User accounts.

Let us know.

 

by: lukerussellPosted on 2007-02-14 at 18:52:08ID: 18537604

thanks guys.

netman, please excuse my ignorance, what is OU?

 

by: Netman66Posted on 2007-02-14 at 19:30:59ID: 18537742

Organizational Unit.

 

by: lukerussellPosted on 2007-02-14 at 20:01:19ID: 18537855

right (duh) will give it a go and let you know.

 

by: jonpontonPosted on 2007-02-14 at 20:20:54ID: 18537938

Creating a new OU is a bit excessive. Instead of making changes to your Active Directory structure for a single machine, how about you try resetting the local admin password first, then removing the computer from the Domain, then re-joining it. I think you may find that there's a problem with the computer account on the domain.

 

by: lukerussellPosted on 2007-02-15 at 01:40:50ID: 18538911

Thanks guys - so many solutions!

 

by: Netman66Posted on 2007-02-15 at 08:36:47ID: 18541537

There's nothing evil in creating a new OU - why would you state that it's excessive?  Is literally a 10 second job.  In fact, this whole method should take about 5 minutes - tops.

 

by: jonpontonPosted on 2007-02-15 at 14:42:55ID: 18544683

I agree mate, nothing "evil", but in a production environment, I would make changing my Active Directory structure a last resort to fix a single PC. It's just common sense, you've got several PCs which are working fine, and one which isn't... you'd look closer at the one PC which isn't working, instead of AD???

Luke, in a prod environment, no changes to AD and GPOs should be taken lightly.

 

by: wparrottPosted on 2007-03-03 at 10:52:08ID: 18647834

lukerussell,

It's been a while since you last responded. Have you been able to resolve the problem?

 

by: lukerussellPosted on 2007-03-04 at 14:21:07ID: 18651381

Hi guys - sorry about delay. Things have been hectic. Actually going over there today so I'll let you know...

 

by: lukerussellPosted on 2007-03-04 at 19:13:58ID: 18652330

Hi everyone. Thanks for all your help and discussions. In the end I followed Netman's solution. Was a bit nervous, as jonponton said - it seemed a bit excessive for 1 PC, but I was too lazy to go out and spend 1 hour on the job - so i gave it a go and it was literally a 2min job! So thanks Netman! Feel a bit bad about not giving the other solutions points, as I'm sure they would also have worked, but now everything is working fine.

Thanbks again everyone.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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