Re: administrator password
It's possible that someone renamed the user account called Administrator.
See if there is a user account in the Users container with a description
like "Built-in account for administering the computer/domain". If someone
changed the name of the Administrator account, they may not have also
changed the Description.
By default there are very few user accounts in the Users container (e.g.
Administrator, Guest, IUSR_..., IWAM_..., krbtgt, SUPPORT_...).
By default, the Administrator user account is a member of Administrators,
Domain Admins, Domain Users, Enterprise Admins, Group Policy Creators and
Schema Admins.
You may have to hunt a bit, but the Administrator user account can not be
deleted, so it's there somewhere.
The objectSID attribute of the Administrator user account (regardless of its
name) will be S-1-5-domain-500. For "domain" substitute the part of the
objectSID that is common to all user accounts in the domain.
Since I had no success finding an application executable to convert names to
SIDs or vice versa (my Internet search skills are somewhat lacking!), I've
built a very primitive one (no error checking!) and posted it on my web site
at
http://members.shaw.ca/bsanders/WindowsGeneralWeb/SIDToUser.htm. It runs
under Windows XP, Vista and Server 2008 (haven't tried Server 2003 yet).
The application was built using Visual Studio 2008 - it may require .Net
Framework 3.0. Thanks to Brent Gardner who provided vital clues for how to
do this on his blog
http://blogs.orcsweb.com/brent/archive/2007/04/20/net-sid2user-and-user2sid.aspx.
To find the name of the built-in adminstrator user account using this
program:
1. launch the program (SIDConverter)
2. in the domain\user box key the domain\username of a user account you know
in your domain (e.g. discovery\brucen)
3. click the Name to SID button
4. replace the rightmost part of the SID with 500
e.g. SID from step 3 = S-1-5-21-2444314999-935136740-3806003358-1107
replace the 1107 with 500
SID will now be S-1-5-21-2444314999-935136740-3806003358-500
5. click the SID to Name button
The name of the built-in administrator account will show in the Domain\User
box (e.g. DISCOVERY\Administrator).
You should then be able to find this account in your Active Directory and
change it's password.
--
Bruce Sanderson
http://members.shaw.ca/bsanders
It is perfectly useless to know the right answer to the wrong question.
"boba" <boba@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:E5ED4C25-5247-444D-91DE-B1795E2A1006@microsoft.com...
>I am looking under users container but I don't see an administrator account
> by itself.
> I have done reset to users account but can't seem to see this account
> anywhere in AD.
>
> "Meinolf Weber" wrote:
>
>> Hello boba,
>>
>> DHCP Administrator, DNS Admins are groups, NO user accounts. On groups
>> you
>> can not reset any password. The administrator account is located in the
>> USERS
>> container.
>>
>> Best regards
>>
>> Meinolf Weber
>> Disclaimer: This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and
>> confers
>> no rights.
>> ** Please do NOT email, only reply to Newsgroups
>> ** HELP us help YOU!!! http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk/mul_crss.htm
>>
>> > Under Active Directory users and computer accounts I see DHCP
>> > Administrator, DNS Admins and when I do right click, like it works
>> > for other users to get the option of re-setting the password, it does
>> > not have that. I also checked under builtin accounts for administrator
>> > but still when right click it does not have the option of resetting
>> > the password.
>> >
>> > Thanks!
>> >
>> > "boba" wrote:
>> >
>> >> How can I change the password for aministrator in domain?
>> >>
>> >> Thanks!
>> >>
>>
>>
>>