Controlling user accounts from the

command line
By John Sheesley February 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 a
GUI to do things. Windows NT and 2000 both allow you to perform
administrative tasks such as dealing with users from the command
line. 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 you how 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 you
want 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. Type cmd and 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.

When you launch the command prompt, type net user and 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
username and press [Enter]. Just replace username with the name of the user you want
information 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 user and
press [Enter]. These switches include:
PasswordThis switch changes the users password. Type the new password right
after 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.
/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:YES to activate the account. /ACTIVE:NO deactivates 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 country
code 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 can
either 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.
Replacename with the users name enclosed in quotation marks.
/HOMEDIR:pathnameThis switch sets the path (pathname) for the user's home
directory. The path must already exist for the switch to work properly.
/PASSWORDCHG:If you type /PASSWORDCHG:YES, users can change their own
passwords. Conversely, setting it to NO disables password changing. The default is
YES.
/PASSWORDREQ:This switch specifies whether a user account must have a
password. The default is YES, but you can type /PASSWORDREQ:NO to 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. Dont
confuse it with the Comment switch just mentioned.
/WORKSTATIONS:This switch allows you to specify workstation names the user can
log 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 workstation
names. 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
command line. In this Daily Feature, I showed you how to administer user accounts using
the Net User command.
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