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What is the best way to securely change the local administrator password in a domain?

What's the most secure way to go about changing the local administrator password on 300 computers in a domain?

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Changing local administrator passwords is a good security practice to keep intruders from getting into workstations and wreaking havoc.

But, keep this in mind if you still want control over the computers on the domain level or through Active Directory. Make sure to first add your domain administrators group to the local administrator group on the computer before you apply the changes on the workstations. Otherwise, you won't be able to remotely administer the machines through the domain.

There are two automated approaches to changing local administrator accounts and passwords on multiple computers in a domain. One is to write a batch script and, the other, if the machines are running Windows, is to use a tool from Microsoft.

The preferred way is to use the Microsoft tool cusrmgr.exe, which comes as part of the Windows 2000 Resource Kit, but can be used on other Windows versions as well. This is done by using cusrmgr.exe to run a batch script that cycles through the workstations on the domain.

To briefly highlight the script method to present an idea of what's possible, scripts in VBScript and Windows Script Host are available on the Web for searching and updating workstations in an Active Directory domain. A 25-line script can usually do the trick.

For more information:

  • In this tip, Joel Dubin offers best practices and tools for ensuring password compliance.
  • Learn how to securely distribute one-time password tokens.

    • This was first published in November 2007

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