Configure local user options

Configure local user options

I hate the Users icon in the Control Panel. I rather edit the user properties myself and not let a dumb wizard do it for me.

Follow the next steps:  

1. Right-click My Computer and choose Manage.

2. In the Computer Management window (there's much you can do from that window - look around if you haven't by now) click the Local Users and Groups console, and then click the Users sub-folder (double-click to expand it if it hasn't by now).

3. In the right-pane select any user and right-click it. Choose Properties.

4. You can make some changes to the selected user, including disabling it, resetting his password and so on.

Warning! Do not play around with the Administrator and the Guest built-in users nor with the built-in groups unless you know exactly what you're doing. You might lock yourself out and then come crying to me. I won't support you. Be warned! copy By: mr.alshan king

Configure local user options - extended

I told you I hate the Users icon in the Control Panel. Now that you know about the LUSRMGR.MSC tool (yes, try to run that from the Run menu) you're probably wondering what else there is to do with a simple local user.

Well, for one thing - how about configuring his or her logon hours?

"Well ok" you say. "How do we do that? Local Users and Groups console, right?"

No! These wise guys from MS figured that you don't need that much control over local users. Why would you? Local users are for workgroups and thus don't need that many setting to be configure.

Wrong!

Sometimes you do want to change a user setting for one reason or another. Why don't we have a GUI interface for that?

Well, we don't. We need to use the NET USER command from the CMD console.

Follow the next steps:  

1. Run the CMD command from the Run menu (or from the Quick Launch toolbar if you've followed my tips so far).
2. Type in

net user xxxxxx

(where xxxxxx is the username you want to edit)

The command displays the user's properties, all of them, not just the ones MS wants you to see. For instance, you can see when was his or her last logon, when he or here have changed their password etc.

3. Type in
   net user xxxxxx /times:s-f,8-19
   
   (where xxxxxx is the username you want to edit, the s-f means Sunday to Friday and 8-19 means the hours of the day when you want the user to be able to log-on)
   Again, run
   net user xxxxxx
   and see the difference.

Type in

net user xxxxxx /times:all

to get the user logon hours back to default.9

4. Play around with the NET USER command. You can get it to do very nice things (read the Create Users for Testing Purposes page for an example).