Administering Windows 2003 – MCSE 70-290

Creating User Accounts

All users within Active Directory are required to have a user account to gain access to network resources. When planning your environment, decide on the format of the username. Some companies choose to use firstinitialLastname, e.g. Joe Teget would be JTeget. Larger companies often prefer to use firstname.lastname, e.g. joe.teget would be the username for Joe Teget. This second option allows for more unique usernames than the first.

1. Open Active Directory Users and Computers.
2. Right-click on Users, choose New, and click on User.
3. Fill out the form with the First Name, Last Name, and User Logon Name. Click Next >.
4. Enter the user’s password twice. This will need to be a complex password. It should contain three of the following four items: UPPER case letters, LOWER case letters, numbers, or special characters (e.g. !@#$%^&*). In addition, it should be at least 8 characters long. An example complex password: Pa55w0rd.
5. Click any of the other options necessary, click Next>.
6. Click Finish.

Watch this short animated clip to see how easy it is to create a new user.

You can also create a new user by copying an existing user. This allows you to create multiple user accounts with the same groups, logon scripts, etc. We will discuss copying user accounts in the Creating a User Account Template section.