In this section, we'll be covering Active Directory in the following sub categories, domain, user accounts, password reset, policy unlocking and disabling and re enabling accounts. The system on our right will be our domain controller. And a system on our left will be a newly image PC for our new user joining the company. But first, we need to join the PC to the domain. So let's do that. I'm going to log in as the local administrator on this system.

I'm going to click start right click Computer and hit properties. We're going to go to change settings. We're going to select Change, select domain. And we're going to type the domain here that we see on our domain controller, which would be fake dc.com, canv a.com. We're going to hit OK. Now here, the username and password that's being asked is the domain administrator password for our server on all right. So let's go ahead and type that.

We know it's administrator. And I'm going to type the password to authenticate. As we can see, the system was successfully authenticated and joined the domain. We're going to click OK. OK, close and we're going to restart this Just wait for it to come up. Okay, now that the system is on the domain, we want to create the account for a new user. So let's go ahead and open Active Directory.

Now here in Active Directory is where we can manage our newly computers that's joined to the network, our domain controllers, the user accounts, delegate access, different things like that. I'm going to right click on users go to new and we want to create a new user So our new hire is going to be Jim McFly. His username is going to be in this case his last name. I want to click Next. And we want to give him a default password to log into the domain with as most companies have, they provide the users with a default password. And then when they first log into the system, that password will expire and the system will ask them to new for a new creative password.

And it's all because of this section here. Using must change password at the next log on. But let's just say we didn't want to do that we can uncheck it. And let's just say we didn't want to use it to change the password at all. We can select that. Or we can change that the password never expires.

Or we can create the account but leave the account in disabled status. Maybe the user doesn't start two weeks from Now, for the moment being, we want the user to change the password at next logon. We're going to click Next. And finish. So now here, we see Jim, let's take a look at Jim's properties. We see a general information on Jim.

He address where he lives or he works with a branch or location, his account status, and a lot of other different things, his contact profiles and groups that he's a member of. Let's go ahead and add Jim, to the domain user accounts or access group. going to click OK. Apply and OK. So now Jim can successfully log on to the network. So let's do that.

We're going to simulate our country I'll delete. I'm going to switch user. And we know his username was his last name, McFly. And we're going to guide him to type in his default username, well password that he was provided with. going to hit Enter. And as we can see, Windows states that the you the password must be changed for the first time for the user to log in.

We're going to click OK. And now here is where Jim, or whatever user, that's first logging on to the network can type their custom password for them to log on to. We're going to change it and hit Enter. And Okay, so now the user will be able to log on to the computer, and they successfully joined the domain. Now at this point, the user has access to whatever information or security that has been permitted with whether it's scanned drives, accompany shared drives, different things like that. As you can see the user logged on successfully. Now that we created the user account, and we logged on as the user, let's go ahead and simulate resetting the user's password.

I'm going to log him out. And I'm going to go back to Active Directory, right click on his name and select reset password. Here, I'm going to set it back to the default. Let's just say Jim called multiple times saying he has a bad habit of remembering his password, or he's trying to log in multiple times and his account keeps getting locked. He can't quite remember it and we just want to reset his password. We can go in and set it back to the default or whatever password you want to set it to.

We're going to select the box user must change password at next login and hit OK. Sorry. Change it one more time. There we go. So now at this point, you can tell Jim to go ahead and login. But now you're going to provide him with the password that you just set in Active Directory.

As you can see, it's prompting him to change his password. We're going to give him a new password and Hit enter. And now the system has changed his password. Now the next section that we're going to cover, is unlocking a user account within any position in it, that's going to be fundamental to majority of the calls that you answer. There's no way around that. So we have to cover how to not well, not only how to unlock a user account, but what dictates the user account getting locked in the first place.

Well, let's go back over to our domain controller. We're going to click Start. And we're going to type Group Policy. We're going to select group policy. And we're going to go to default domain policy. Right click, hit Edit Want to go down to preferences?

Windows settings? Sorry, maybe I'm at the wrong place. Windows settings. Let's see one second. Security Settings and we're going to go down to action policies. And we're going to right click on password policies and open.

Now here, we have different selections. We see the past we can enforce password history, the maximum password, age, minimum password, age, the length, the characters, things like that. But we want to go to account lockout policy and we want to go to account lockout threshold. Right click and properties. Now as you can see, here, it says the account will lock out after three invalid logon attempts. So basically, here within Group Policy, we can set this number to be 50 or 10, or whatever we want, but majority of companies that are in existence today, pretty much the fundamentals are three times.

So we're going to hit Apply. And Okay. So now, let's have Jim, log off. So now we're going to simulate Jim getting locked out. We're going to do all Ctrl Alt Delete. We see Jim tries once.

Jim tries twice, Jim tries three times. As you can see Jim is currently locked out. Now let's take a look at Active Directory and see what changes. We're going to open Active Directory. We're going to right click on Jim's name, go to properties account. And as you can see, Active Directory reports us that his account is currently locked out.

So we're going to unlock Jim, hit Apply. And Okay. So now we go ahead and tell Jim to go ahead and login with his same password that he set and hit enter. As you can see, Jim can now successfully log in. Now in our last section, we're going to cover disabling and re enabling accounts. Now let's go ahead and have Jim log Golf.

We're going to go to his account properties. Here his account his address, sorry, actually, we can just right click on his name and hit disable account. So now we see that Active Directory has successfully disabled Joe's account. So Jim, let's just say Jim was terminated and you got the notice you're on the security team, or whatever team handles terminations. Now, Jim success, Jim's account has successfully been disabled. So let's just say he goes home and he's very angry and he says I'm going to delete all the information from the company.

When Jim tries to authenticate against the network. He can still type his username, but when he tries to type his default password, he's going to get the phone Message Oh, sorry. log off one more time. Sometimes the recording to hit disable count go back, try it one more time. Have Jim log in. And as you can see, his system reports that his account has been disabled.

Now these are the very basics of active directory that every IT technician needs to know. I'm sorry if I sound a little muffled. I'm in a hotel. I'm going through the whole hurricane Harvey situation in Houston. But I hope you guys enjoyed this course for the fundamentals and basics. Active Directory Users and Computers