3 Ways to Create New Active Directory Users
Option #1: Creating new users with Active Directory Administrative Center
If you’ve never used Windows Server or Active Directory before, then the
Active Directory Administrative Center is the easiest management tool to get
to grips with. You’ll need to log in to Windows Server 2012 R2 with a domain
administrator account, or a domain-connected PC where the Remote Server
Administration Tools (RSAT) are installed. To run ADAC, start Server
Manager by clicking the blue icon next to the Start button on the desktop
taskbar, or the Server Manager tile on the Start screen.
In Server Manager, select Active Directory Administrative Center from
the Tools menu.
In the Active Directory Administrative Center, click Users below ad (local) in
the left pane.
n the Tasks pane on the right, click New under Users, and select User from
the menu.
In the Create User dialog box, all required fields are marked by an asterisk.
Start by filling out the First name and Last name fields, and the Full name field
will be automatically populated.
All new users must have a SamAccountName, which is the user’s AD logon
name, but I recommend filling out the User UPN logon field, and
SamAccountName will be filled in automatically.
Enter and confirm a password, and then click OK.
Click the refresh icon at the top of ADAC, and the new user object will appear
in the central pane, from where you can edit it at a later stage if required. The
user will be required to change the password the first time they log on, and
don’t forget that the password you set must meet the password complexity
requirements set in domain policy. Note that domain users don’t have the
necessary rights to log in locally on domain controllers, so test new user
logins from a domain-joined PC.
Option #2: Creating new with Active Directory Users and Computer
Creating new users with the Active Directory Users and Computers tool is
almost as easy.
Open Server Manager and select Active Directory Users and
Computers from the Tools menu.
In the left pane of ADUC, expand your domain and click the Users container.
In the right pane, right click some empty space and select New > User from
the menu.
In the New Object – User dialog, enter a First name, Last name, User logon
name and then click Next.
Type and confirm a password, then click Next.
Check the information for the new user on the confirmation screen and
click Finish.
The new user account will appear in the Users container in ADUC.
Option #3: Creating new users with the dsadd command
Adding a new user with the dsadd command is a little easier than with
PowerShell, as we don’t need to convert the password to a secure string.
Open a PowerShell prompt or command prompt, type the command below
and press ENTER. To open a PowerShell prompt, click the blue PowerShell
icon on the desktop taskbar, or click the Windows PowerShell tile on
the Start screen. It doesn’t matter that dsadd is not a PowerShell cmdlet, it
can still be run from a PowerShell window.
PowerShell
dsadd user “cn=Russell Smith,cn=Users,dc=ad,dc=contoso,dc=com” -samid russellsmith -upn
1 [email protected] -fn Russell -ln Smith -display “Russell Smith” -disabled no -pwd
“PassW0rd!” -mustchpwd yes
The first parameter is the distinguished name (DN) for the new AD object, and
is required. For more information about the available parameters for
the dsadd user command, type dsadd user -? and press ENTER in the
command prompt.
