Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Remote Add Domain User to local Admin Group

I have a bunch of computers in classrooms and teachers like being able to install software on those computers...most of the time it is items that I would do myself if I had the time, but it is more convenient to have the staff do it for me since they want to use it.  Anyway, I found these instructions that add a user to the local administrators group.  I can run this remotely from my desk without having to get up and travel to the remote location.

I followed these instructions to do this, so I am not the one who figured this out, just want to make it easier for the next guy to find.

1. Get a copy of PSTools from Microsoft.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896649


2. Open a command prompt and run psexec.

  psexec.exe \\computername cmd.exe


3. Add the user.

  net localgroup administrators domain\user /add


That is all there is to it.  Have the user sign into the computer with their own credentials and they now have permissions to install on the computer.