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So here is my situation:

My company runs a "Windows 2003 Server Standard Edition" domain server, connected to a bunch of Dell Optiplex PC's (380's, and 9020's). The older Dells (380) are connected to the domain server and do not require the admin password to install new software, or access certain files used by our Help Desk Software. The newer Dells (9020) we are upgrading to though require an admin password to do all these functions even when using an established account.

Both the older desktops and the newer ones are running Windows 7, and I do not see any reason why they would run differently. I am new to working with domain servers however and had to connect the PC to the domain after setup (and creating a new admin and user account) simply due to lack of knowledge. I don't see how that might mess things up, but I feel I should mention it.

Edit: whoami /groups brings up the groups "BUILTIN\Administrators" and "BUILTIN\Remote Desktop" on the old build that works the way I want, but these are missing from the new build. Otherwise they are the same. Obviously this is a key difference, how would I go about fixing this?

Thanks.

river226
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  • could you please post the output of `whoami /groups` for the "established account" you mentioned for both environments - the "old" and working one as well as the "new" one not working as intended? – the-wabbit Sep 16 '14 at 15:06
  • Updated Post with the difference of the outputs. – river226 Sep 23 '14 at 14:07

1 Answers1

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Your users are not members of the local "Administrators" group of the new Windows 7 machines. IIRC, in Windows Server 2003 SBS the administrators membership has been assigned by the script running in the "connect computer" wizard. You either should run this very wizard (which would require your SBS to be patched accordingly with KB926505) or just add the users to the local Administrators group by either

  • logging in with an administrative (e.g. domain admin) account and using the Local Users and Groups MMC snapin (lusrmgr.msc) to change memberships
  • using the Restricted Groups or the Group Policy Preferences in GPOs applied to the machines in question to put the appropriate users or security groups into the local Administrators group

Please note that you probably should by all means retire SBS 2003 in your infrastructure as the product's components are end-of-support or approaching end-of-support within a couple of months. Not being able to easily get an answer regarding a question about a formerly well-documented and widely-used feature should be a definite shot across the bow, too.

the-wabbit
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