PowerShell: Create Local User Account

56
votes

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.

5
powershellpowershell-2.0
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
Powershell-esque is cmdlets & pipelines; this is C++ – bwerks
@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

5 Answers

72
votes

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.

45
votes

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 [email protected]" -Description "Description of this account."
12
votes

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.

8
votes

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.

1
votes
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