Re: Preventing Users from removing their PC from the Domain

Before you go and remove all users from the local administrators group,
which I think is usually a great idea, just make sure no problems arise in
that they can not do their jobs such as not being able to run a legacy
application though often such applications can work for a regular user with
some tweaking of folder and possibly registry permissions but not always.
You can also use Group Policy Restricted Groups to manage membership of
local computer groups on domain computers such as administrators and power
users. If you want to consider that then be sure to implement Restricted
Groups at the Organizational Unit level instead of the domain level for that
purpose and understand that Restricted Groups can remove all existing
members of the Restricted Group and replace them with the users/groups you
specify and that such change of removing existing members is not reversible
simply be removing the Restricted Group, Group Policy setting. To answer
your question it is not possible to require any special credentials to
remove a computer from the domain - the user just needs to be a local
administrator. The link below explains more about using Group Policy
Restricted Groups. --- Steve

http://www.windowsecurity.com/articles/Using-Restricted-Groups.html ---
Group Policy Restricted Groups
http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/PsPasswd.html --- this can help in
changing local account passwords

<rndinit9@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1151217317.597029.42040@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Your right Steven,

I did find the user in the local admin group. So I suppose I have the
following tasks:

1.) Change all the local admin passwords
2.) Remove all users from localadmin groups
3.) Harden our security to the best of my ability

My problem is considered solved. However one last question.

Is there a way I can force valid authentication to be required to
remove a PC from a domain?

That would mean even if I'm a Domain Admin, and logged in such I would
still want windows to force me to type in my password.

Not sure if this would be of good use, but Im curious if I can force
this behavior.

Thanks again Steven.

Steven L Umbach wrote:
I have seen the behavior where you don't need to enter valid credentials
if
you are logged on as a local administrator. Whenever I have not been
logged
on as a user that is not in the local administrators group either
explicitly
or by group membership I can not even access the change name or network
ID
settings as they are grayed out and a message shows that only a local
administrator can do such. I would double check that you are not logged
on
as a user that is also a local administrator whether that be a domain
account or a local account. I would try it again but before hand it would
help if you could post in a reply the results for the whoami /groups
command
for the logged on user that can remove the computer from the domain and
the
command net localgroup administrators. Whoami can be downloaded from
Microsoft and I believe it is a RK tool. --- Steve



<rndinit9@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1151212284.901984.169050@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
thank you Steven, however I logged on as a non local administrator. To
be more specific a user.
The user does not have any privlidges what so ever. They cannot install
or uninstall software, but im willing to bet that even the guest
account (disabled by default) would be able to remove the PC from the
domain.

The funny thing is, when it prompts the user for a user name or
password, if you leave those fields blank and hit ok, it will work. And
the PC is removed from the domain. Would appreciate more replies.

Steven L Umbach wrote:
A user needs to be a local administrator in order to remove their
computer
from the domain. So the obvious answer is to not allow the user to be
a
local administrator and look at ways for the user to function as
needed
without being a local administrator. I know that may not always be
possible.
There is no magic bullet to prevent local administrators from removing
their
computer from the domain as local administrators by definition and
design
are all powerful on their computer. About the best you can do is to
have
a
strict user policy that users sign and understand and that removing
computers from the domain is prohibited. You can also use Group Policy
to
try and hide access to ways a user would use to remove their computer
from
the domain if it does not interfere with their needed access to the
operating system. Group Policy can be used to hide or remove access to
Control Panel applets such as System which is probably what most users
use.
That will not work however for skilled and determined users. ---
Steve


<rndinit9@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1151146580.725415.255000@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

rndinit9@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
Currently users are able to remove their PC's from the domain w/o
being
prompted for a DomainAdmin username/pass. This is becomming a
problem.
How can I set it that in order for a PC to be removed from the
domain,
that a domain admin username & password must be entered.

Your help is appreciated.

To add some info: The DC is Windows 2000





.

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