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Cannot add user as administrator

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by byteside

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I am the Technical Support at a chemical dependency treatment center. We have 48 users on a domain server. 5 of the 48 pc's are set aside for our residents to gain access to the Internet. Huge group policies restrict them from gaining access to anything on the server except Internet access. Their Internet access is provided through a wireless router connected to one ethernet jack in the wall. (only one available in that room hence the wireless network of 5.) Anyway, I need to replace one of the wireless nic's and install a printer. I have figured out how to lift the huge group policy by moving the users account to a temp OU. This allows me to gain access to stuff like control panel, run,CMD and edit the registry. Problem is, I need to be the administrator to add stuff like nic and configure wireless connection and install printer. Once logged in as admin, I go to Users and Passwords in control panel to give the current user administrative privlages temperaraly to install things and the ADD, Remove, and Properties buttons are all grayed out with change password button. My fear is that if I install printer as administrator is the printer only going to be installed in that profile? Where else is there a restriction that I need to release to gain access to the ADD, REMOVE, and PROPERTIES buttons? We had hired an outside company to place all these restrictions and now it is my job to figure out what they did so I can fix things without costing the facility a bundle of cash.

5 replies

by ewgny

The users don't need to be local administrators to install printers. However the group policy may prevent them from doing so. The printers would best be installed for the users by using a logon script. A simple example can be found here
http://tinyurl.com/62drz
The logon script can be added via group policy.
If you need additional assistance please post back

by mrjay67

Something to keep in mind...

When adding a network printer that is shared of a PC then it will usually only install to that profile.

A local printer will typically install for all users. Local being either a lpt/usb port or an IP printer. If your printer is setup directly on the network and has its own IP it is(or can be) setup as a local printer. Instead of choosing lpt/usb you would use the other option and select standard IP port.

To make a shared network printer available to all users you can use a generic/default profile. Set up the printer with this profile and any other settings you might want them to have. Then copy this profile to the "default user" profile. Any new user/profile will get this printer and settings. Existing profiles will not copy down this default profile until you delete the users current profile and log them back in.

There is a reg hack for adding default network printers but seems a bit more complicated in my opinion.

If you decide to delete the user profiles be sure to back up any data that they may need from it first. Remember these profiles are located in the documents and settings folder usually on the root of C:.

You can look in Group policies for restrictions that may be set(gpedit.msc). This can be changed localy/individualy at each pc but there may be a central point that the settings are comming from such as active directory.

hth

Jason

by adembo

If you want to adjust the policy, then you need to use mmc and add group policy editor, or just use the DC and find the group policy on the OU. Then go the User Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Control Panel. Here is where you can say whether or not they see the items.

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