How to change administrator passwords?

[boomboom999]

Windows XP/2003, Active Directory, SMS 2003


How can I change regularly the local administrator's password on 4000
workstations?


GPO? SMS?


Option 1 - Use SMS or GPO for that purpose


In that case, I will need to place the password in SMS packages or in
GPO scripts which is not good because the SMS packages and GPO scripts
can be read by users and the password can be easily discovered.


Option 2 - Use some script that goes thru AD and changes the password
remotely on all PCs, one by one


That seems to be a good idea but not all workstations are static. There

are laptops. So, sometimes they are absent so they will miss the
password change quite often.


Any idea or advice?

 

[Jerold Schulman]

Windows XP/2003, Active Directory, SMS 2003


How can I change regularly the local administrator's password on 4000
workstations?


GPO? SMS?


Option 1 - Use SMS or GPO for that purpose


In that case, I will need to place the password in SMS packages or in
GPO scripts which is not good because the SMS packages and GPO scripts
can be read by users and the password can be easily discovered.


Option 2 - Use some script that goes thru AD and changes the password
remotely on all PCs, one by one


That seems to be a good idea but not all workstations are static. There

are laptops. So, sometimes they are absent so they will miss the
password change quite often.


Any idea or advice?

See tip 7324 » How do I change the Administrator password on all my workstations, from my desktop, using freeware?
in the 'Tips & Tricks' at http://www.jsifaq.com


Jerold Schulman
Windows Server MVP
JSI, Inc.
http://www.jsiinc.com
http://www.jsifaq.com

 

[Ken Aldrich]

DSRAZOR for Windows has an applet that makes doing this really easy.
Changing the local admin password is as easy as changing the password on a
user account in your Active Directory.

You drill down to the OU with the computer accounts in Active Directory (or
search your whole domain), do a shift-select to select all machines (or just
select the ones you want), and press the Reset Password button. Enter your
password and click OK.
It does not matter if you have renamed your local administrator accounts, it
looks for the local user account with SID ending in 500.

If you would like a free personalized web demonstration of this or a free
trial, look for us here:
www.visualclick.com/?source=localadminpass071906