Changing the name of the Local Administrator account on Windows systems is an effective method to increase system security and prevent unauthorized access. This process is especially effective when attackers use the default “Administrator” may make it harder for someone to target your account.
Group Policy You can apply this change centrally across all computers in your domain using
local administrator, by default SID 500and even when you change the name of the Local Administrator account SID its value does not change.
Changing Local Administrator Account with Group Policy (GPO)
All the operations we will do Group Policy Management We will perform it via the console and the created Policy will be applied. There must be Computer objects in the OU.
- All of these operations Domain Controller via your server and RSAT You need to do it from your installed servers.
- https://cengizyilmaz.net/windows-server-2022-active-directory-kurulumu/
Creating a New Group Policy Object
Open your Group Policy Management console and right-click on the Group Policy Object option and continue with the New option.
You will create Policy You must specify a unique and recognizable name for your object.
If you are providing Group Policy Management in a Prod environment, you must define a standard for each policy and object.
How to Change Local Admin Name with Group Policy
We have created "RenameLocalAdministratorWe can start editing the object. For this Group Policy Management on the screen we created "RenameLocalAdministratorRight click on the object Edit We select the option.
In order to make our configurations, we follow the path below;
Computer Configuration > Policies > Windows Settings > Security Settings > Local Policies > Security Options
To make changes to the policy we will change the name of our Administrator account “Accounts: Rename administrator account” we find the option.
Accounts: Rename administrator account while in the option Define this policy setting we tick the option.
- We create a new name for our Administrator account, for example “Supervisor”
- We save the changes with the Appy and OK buttons.
Link GPO to Related OU
Group Policy Management To change the name of the Local Administrator account, we need to link the policy we created to the OU where our computer objects are located.
We right-click on the OU we want to link and select the "Link an Existing GPO" option.
We created "RenameLocalAdministratorWe select ” Policy and OK We save our transactions with the button.
Verify Local Administrator Name Change Process
With the Policy we created with the Group Policy Management interface, we changed the Local Administrator name on all devices in our environment. In order to verify this action, the GPO must first be applied.
GPO is implemented when the following conditions are met;
- Restart process
- gpupdate or gpupdate /force command
- Wait for automatic gpo to be applied
- On client computers, open Command Prompt as administrator.
- Update the group policy by running the following command
gpupdate /force
- Open the “Local Users and Groups” console by running the “lusrmgr.msc” command.
- In the “Users” section, check that the “Administrator” account has changed to the name you just specified.
When we check the Administrator Properties, we can see that the Local Administrator account has been updated to "Supervisor" as we specified in the Policy.
Important notes:
- The “Administrator” account may be used by some services or tasks. Therefore, it is important to verify that these services and tasks are working properly after the name change.
- If you encounter any issues, you can revert the changes by reverting the GPO settings or removing the GPO.
By following these steps, you can safely change the name of the local administrator account using Group Policy.
Active Directory Computer Account for this Workstation Trust Relationship Are you getting this error? You can follow the article below.
