# Change Local Administrator Password over the LAN



## thigley986 (Mar 10, 2005)

I have several hundred clients that all have a weaker local administrator password than I'd like. I need to be able to change this over the LAN- going around to each system and doing it is not an option.

I tried to have this script (below, password changed to password for post) run as a startup script. I verified that it is being ran, but the changes are not taking effect! I can run the script from the local administrator account and it will work, however.

Any suggestions or other methods I could use?

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NET USER Administrator _PASSWORD_
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*Enviroment Notes:* Windows 2003 Native Domain, Windows XP SP2 clients, single site & domain


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## Squashman (Apr 14, 2005)

I am not sure how a Windows Domain works but we do this very thing on our Netware Network. Very similar to what you are trying to do, but I think because you are on a domain, the user executing the script would need to be in the local administrators group on the pc itself.


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## aprior (Jan 10, 2006)

If this is all in a Windows domain, just open the Local Users and Groups MMC snap-in for the remote computer (the computer you wish to change the dministrator password on), select Users, right-click Administrator, Set Password.
As Squashman said, your script won't work unless it's being run on the remote machine with administrative permissions, which the logged on user probably doesn't have.


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## mcvpjd3 (Mar 23, 2006)

Squashman said:


> I am not sure how a Windows Domain works but we do this very thing on our Netware Network. Very similar to what you are trying to do, but I think because you are on a domain, the user executing the script would need to be in the local administrators group on the pc itself.



Any clues as to how you do this as we have decided to change all the Admin passwords on our users PC (they are administrators, but we lock them down with Zenworks).


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## crazijoe (Oct 19, 2004)

You could remote into each machine.


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## Squashman (Apr 14, 2005)

mcvpjd3 said:


> Any clues as to how you do this as we have decided to change all the Admin passwords on our users PC (they are administrators, but we lock them down with Zenworks).


If you are a Netware Admin, I sugges you become real familiar with the Cool Solutions and In the Trenches websites on Novell.

http://www.novell.com/coolsolutions/trench/3378.html
http://www.novell.com/coolsolutions/

And the Cool Solutions forums.
http://coolsolutions.com/forums/index.php


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