PowerShell: Create Local User Account

Question

I need to create a new local user account, and then add them to the local Administrators group. Can this be done in PowerShell?

EDIT:

# Create new local Admin user for script purposes
$Computer = [ADSI]"WinNT://$Env:COMPUTERNAME,Computer"

$LocalAdmin = $Computer.Create("User", "LocalAdmin")
$LocalAdmin.SetPassword("Password01")
$LocalAdmin.SetInfo()
$LocalAdmin.FullName = "Local Admin by Powershell"
$LocalAdmin.SetInfo()
$LocalAdmin.UserFlags = 64 + 65536 # ADS_UF_PASSWD_CANT_CHANGE + ADS_UF_DONT_EXPIRE_PASSWD
$LocalAdmin.SetInfo()

I have this, but was wondering if there is anything more PowerShell-esque.

What isn't Powershell-esque about that? Not everything is a cmdlet - but that doesn't mean you can't wrap the code above in a function of your own to make it feel like one. — alroc, Mar 02 '13 at 19:58
@bwerks - if cmdlets and pipelines are what PowerShell means to you then you're entirely missing out on the "power" part of PowerShell -- .NET, COM Interfaces, Reflection, Platform Invocation, etc. etc. etc. — thepip3r, Jul 20 '17 at 22:13
I had to use your ADSI method as `New-LocalUser` was throwing errors about not meeting password complexity requirements. — woter324, Nov 09 '21 at 12:37

score 75 · Accepted Answer · edited Feb 13 '17 at 18:39

75

Another alternative is the old school NET USER commands:

NET USER username "password" /ADD

OK - you can't set all the options but it's a lot less convoluted for simple user creation & easy to script up in Powershell.

NET LOCALGROUP "group" "user" /add to set group membership.

edited Feb 13 '17 at 18:39

Cristian Ciupitu

20,270
7
50
76

answered May 20 '13 at 13:02

SinisterPenguin

1,610
15
17

3

Calling out to `net.exe` strikes me as being _less_ "PowerShell-esque" than the original ADSI code; there is nothing indicative of PowerShell in those commands, and you could drop them in, say, a batch file and they'd work just the same. To me, this eschews the **Power** of an object-oriented **Shell** and reverts back to having to deal with application-specific command syntaxes, exit codes, and error messages. To be fair, though, there's really two different questions that have been asked here: "How can I do this in PowerShell?" and "I can do this in PowerShell. How can I do it better?" – Lance U. Matthews Sep 12 '16 at 16:54
2

FWIW I ran into an issue with a PowerShell function I wrote to wrap "NET USER /ADD" call. Specifically, if the password was longer than 14 characters, the NET USER commandline would prompt for input from the user to confirm Y/N. There is no commandline option in NET USER to provide that confirmation so that will "freeze" PS scripts that are run non-interactively. – Jaans Sep 15 '16 at 04:05
1

@Jaans, you can override that prompt by issuing /Y at the end: `net user $name $password /add /fullname:$full /passwordchg:no /Y` – Desktop Dec 27 '18 at 08:56

score 45 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 12 '16 at 15:44

45

As of PowerShell 5.1 there cmdlet New-LocalUser which could create local user account.

Example of usage:

Create a user account

New-LocalUser -Name "User02" -Description "Description of this account." -NoPassword

or Create a user account that has a password

$Password = Read-Host -AsSecureString
New-LocalUser "User03" -Password $Password -FullName "Third User" -Description "Description of this account."

or Create a user account that is connected to a Microsoft account

New-LocalUser -Name "MicrosoftAccount\usr name@Outlook.com" -Description "Description of this account."

answered Sep 12 '16 at 15:44

codevision

5,165
38
50

It should be mentioned that there is still only a preview release of PowerShell 5.1. – kls Sep 16 '16 at 14:14
1

PowerShell 5.1 is included in Windows Server 2016. :-) – Gert van den Berg Oct 31 '16 at 11:38
1

Verified that this worked on Windows 10 Enterprise, Powershell Version 5.1 Build 14393 – RoninEngineer Jan 08 '17 at 02:50
Works on Windows 7 after nstalling WMF5.1 as well – stijn Jun 29 '17 at 07:43

score 12 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 10 '13 at 03:58

12

Try using Carbon's Install-User and Add-GroupMember functions:

Install-User -Username "User" -Description "LocalAdmin" -FullName "Local Admin by Powershell" -Password "Password01"
Add-GroupMember -Name 'Administrators' -Member 'User'

Disclaimer: I am the creator/maintainer of the Carbon project.

answered Jul 10 '13 at 03:58

Aaron Jensen

25,861
15
82
91

Hi, your get carbon was exactly what I was looking for, does it script out the mod-security for asp web sites too on 2k12r2. It would nice tosee some recommendations on security modules etc for IIS and defending the Server. – aggie Dec 08 '15 at 15:33
@aggie See the [Carbon docs](http://get-carbon.org/documentation.html) for the full list of its capabilities. – Aaron Jensen Dec 08 '15 at 15:44
me likey, looks well maintained. won't be long before i carbonize our base module for deployment scripts. i might have some contribs down the line. thanks @aaronjensen et al! – sonjz May 20 '16 at 16:23

score 8 · Answer 4 · edited May 27 '16 at 16:07

8

As of 2014, here is a statement from a Microsoft representative (the Scripting Guy):

As much as we might hate to admit it, there are still no Windows PowerShell cmdlets from Microsoft that permit creating local user accounts or local user groups. We finally have a Desired State Configuration (DSC ) provider that can do this—but to date, no cmdlets.

edited May 27 '16 at 16:07

Slogmeister Extraordinaire

2,890
2
25
39

answered Jun 12 '15 at 20:49

rasx

5,288
2
45
60

score 1 · Answer 5 · edited Jan 07 '18 at 01:34

1

Import-Csv C:\test.csv |
Foreach-Object {
  NET USER    $ _.username   $ _.password /ADD
  NET LOCALGROUP "group" $_.username  /ADD
}

edit csv as username,password and change "group" for your groupname

:) worked on 2012 R2

edited Jan 07 '18 at 01:34

Piotr Adam Milewski

14,150
3
21
42

answered Jan 07 '18 at 00:06

Anderson Abu Soares

11
1

score 0 · Answer 6 · answered May 12 '22 at 10:35

0

$sec_pass = ConvertTo-SecureString -String "SomePasword" -AsPlainText -Force
New-LocalUser -Name username -FullName username -PasswordNeverExpires -Password $sec_pass
Add-LocalGroupMember -Group Administrators -Member username

answered May 12 '22 at 10:35

Papa Smurf

41
3

PowerShell: Create Local User Account

6 Answers6

Linked