Setting Up Domain Administrator Account

After you have created and configured the Active Directory domain, you should make a domain administrator account. You will need this account in the next step when adding the nodes to the domain.

To set up a domain administrator account, you should:

• create a new user on the domain controller;
• include the newly created user in the Domain Admins group.

First, you should create a new user account on the domain controller. To this effect, complete the following tasks:

1. Log in to the domain controller.
2. Click Start, point to Administrative Tools, and click Active Directory Users and Computers.
3. In the left pane of the Active Directory Users and Computers window, expand the contents of the newly created Active Directory domain (in our case it is mycompany.local).
4. Right-click the Users folder, point to New, and select User.
5. In the New Object - User window, do the following:
   • Type your first and last names in the First name and Last name fields, respectively.
   • In the User logon name field, type a name that will be used to log on to the Active Directory domain. For example:
     
   After providing the necessary information, click Next.
6. Specify an arbitrary password for the domain administrator account and click Next.
   
7. The last window allows you to review the parameters provided by on the previous steps. If you wish to modify any parameters, click Back; otherwise, click Finish to create the domain administrator account.

Now you should include the newly created account in the Domain Admins group, which will allow this account to perform administrative tasks in the domain context. To this effect, do the following:

1. In the Active Directory Users and Computers window (Start --> Administrative Tools --> Active Directory Users and Computers), right-click the created user account and select Properties.
2. Select the Member Of tab and click Add.
3. In the Select Groups dialog box, type Domain Admins and click OK.
   
4. Click OK.

How to Make a Domain User the Local Administrator for all PCs

How to Make a Domain User the Local Administrator for all PCs

Table of Contents

• Step 1 : Creating a Security Group
• Step 2: Create Group Policy.
• Step 3: Configure the policy to add the “Local Admin” group as Administrators
• Step 4: Linking GPO
• Step 5: Testing GPOs

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You can create GPO(Group Policy Objects) and link the GPO to domain or OU(Organization Unit) containing all the computers. Below are the steps to follow,

Step 1 : Creating a Security Group

First you need to create a security group called Local Admin

• Log onto a Domain Controller, open Active Directory Users and Computers (dsa.msc)
• Create a security Group name it Local Admin. From Menu Select Action | New | Group

• Name the group as Local Admin.

• Add the Help Desk members to Local Admin group. I will add two users say Tom and Bob.

Step 2: Create Group Policy.

Next you need to create a group policy called “Local Admin GPO”

• Open Group Policy Management Console ( gpmc.msc )
• Right click on Group Policy Objects and select  New. 

• Type the name of the policy "Local Admin GPO"

Step 3: Configure the policy to add the “Local Admin” group as Administrators

Here you will add the Local Admin group to the Local Admin GPO policy and put them in the groups you wish them to use.

• Right click “Local Admin GPO” Policy then select Edit.

  

• Expand Computer configuration\Policies\Windows Settings\Security Settings\Restricted Groups
• In the Left pane on Restricted Groups, Right Click and select “Add Group“

• In the Add Group dialog box, select browse and type Local Admin and then click“Check Names“

• Click OK twice to close the dialog box.

• Click Add under “This group is a member of:”
•  Add the “Administrators” Group.
•  Add “Remote Desktop Users”
•  Click OK twice

NOTE# When adding groups, you can add whatever you want, the GPO will match the group on the system, if you type “Admins” it will match a local group called Admins if it exists and put “Local Admin” in that group.

Step 4: Linking GPO

• In Group policy management console, right click on the domain or the OU and select Link an Existing GPO

• Select the Local Admin GPO

Step 5: Testing GPOs

Log on to a PC which is join to the domain and then run gpupdate /force and check the local administrators group. You should see Local Admin in that group now. Make sure all PCs you want to access should be move to an OU and properly link above GPO. Tom and Bob domain users can now access all PCs remotely as a local administrator.

Windows 2012 Turn off Password Complexity

Windows 2012 Turn off Password Complexity

How to disable (turn off) the default Windows 2012 Administrator Complexity

1. Open the Administrative Tool

 

2. This places you in the Administrative Tools section. Select Local Security Policy and Open it.

 

3. Change the password Must Meet Complex Requirements option to Disabled.

 

Now Follow the steps to edit and update the policy

In the Server Manager click on Tools and from the drop down click Group Policy Management

Expand Forrest >> Domains >> Your Domain Controller.

Right Click on the Default Domain Policy and click on the Edit from the context menu.

Now Expand Computer Configuration -> Policies -> Windows Settings -> Security Settings -> Account Policies -> Password Policy

Double-click on the Passwords Must Meet Complexity Requirements option in the right pane.

Select Disabled  under define this policy setting:

Click Apply then OK all the way out and close the GPO window.

In order to refresh the policy type the following command: “gpupdate /force”  in the CMD window and click ENTER.

 

 

SharePoint 2010- Create a New Quick Step & Custom Actions - Old (but useful)

SharePoint 2010- Create a New Quick Step & Custom Actions Creating a new Quick Step allows you to add a ribbon item to perform a custom action, such as a workflow. When you create this Quick Step users can easily activate the workflow from the Ribbon. Below is a screenshot of the configured Quick Step in the ribbon: To create this, from the Browser, select the List Ribbon and then select the Library Tab and the New Quick Step button. From here, SharePoint Designer will open and you will be able to enter the data for the Quick Step: You will notice that once you select ok you are redirected to the list page in SharePoint Designer and your Quick Step is listed under the Custom Action section. Also notice the Ribbon. You will see that you have another location to create the custom actions. From this menu you can see that we can create the custom action in different locations and when you click one of those options you will see we have more options than just linking to a workflow. When you select one of the items, you will see a similar entry screen that allows you to select the custom action you want to complete. You can navigate to a form, start a workflow or navigate to a URL. Below are some screenshots with samples of the locations that you can add the items. I used a document library, so I don't have an example from the new item form that you would have in a list.  Comments

How to create a Quick Step and Custom Action to start SharePoint 2013 workflow

Today, I will share with you a feature for creating a Ribbon button on a SharePoint server UI. This button will start a SharePoint 2013 workflow when pressed. As a matter of fact, you can achieve this by two different features which actually share many things in common – they are Quick Steps and Custom Actions. I will go with Quick Steps first which provides a more tailored user experience for this goal and then explain Custom Actions briefly.

If you are already used to Custom Actions or Quick Steps to start SharePoint 2010 workflow, then you can just try to create one to start a SharePoint 2013 workflow. Since the UX is, basically, the same, it should be easy for users who have done this before.

Quick Steps

I will explain in detail how you can create a Quick Step to start a SharePoint 2013 workflow.

Preparation

Creating a Quick Step requires some prerequisites.
First, you need to prepare a Ribbon icon file to show up in the Ribbon for the Quick Step you will define in the following steps. I decided to use the Site Assets document library and uploaded an image file there.



Second, you must have a list or document library you want to create the Quick Step in. In this example, I will use a Vacation Request list and create a quick step which starts a workflow to request an approval for the vacation.

Create a Quick Step

Now that you have the list to use, it is time to create a Quick Step. It is very easy. Just click the New Quick Step button under Customize List group in LIST Ribbon tab as highlighted below.




If you used a document library, you can find it under Customize Library group in the LIBRARY Ribbon tab as below.




Clicking the button will lead you to this dialog where you just need to choose Allow.



SPD is then launched with the Vacation Request list shown with the following dialog popped up.



Take some time to explore the UIs on this dialog. You will find that you can create a new workflow based on SharePoint 2013 Workflow or SharePoint 2010 Workflow, or use some existing workflows. You will also notice that you can define the button label and button image. As we will create a new workflow based on SharePoint 2013 Workflow, choose the Start a new workflow option and then choose SharePoint 2013 Workflow as the Platform Type. Type in ‘Vacation Approval’ for the Button Label field. Lastly, click the Browse button to locate the icon image we uploaded in the Preparation section. Your dialog should look like below:

[SC(1]

Once you click OK, a workflow designer for SharePoint 2013 Workflow will be presented as below. Feel free to complete the workflow logic. In this example, as mentioned before, we will create a Vacation Approval workflow.



Once you publish your workflow, you’ve finished creating a new Quick Step. If you go to the ITEMS Ribbon tab, you will find a new Ribbon group Quick Steps is created and a new Ribbon menu Vacation Approval is created as well.



And if you go to the list summary page for the Vacation Request list in SPD, you will find that a workflow named ‘Button – Vacation Approval’ is present and a Custom Action named ‘Vacation Approval’ is created. As a matter of fact, Quick Step is a specific kind of Custom Actions. So if you are familiar with the Custom Actions’ features, you can apply them to your Quick Steps as well.

Modify Quick Step (Advanced)

As Quick Step is a mixture of Custom Action (‘View Ribbon’ type Custom Actions) and a list workflow, you can apply some Custom Action features to modify the created Quick Step. If you click ‘Vacation Approval’ in the Custom Actions slab, the following dialog will be presented.
You can change the name of the button and even update the Quick Step to do a different job such as navigation to some forms or web pages, or starting a different workflow.



And if you scroll down a bit, you can find some advanced settings. If you use the Ribbon Location field and Sequence number field, you can change the location of the Ribbon button.



Let’s say, we want the button to show up in Workflows group rather than in Quick Steps group and want it to show up last in the group. Then you can easily achieve this by modifying the values to followings:



This will make the button show on the targeted location as below.



If you want to know more about the values available in the Ribbon Location, please refer to following article or search for some other blog articles explaining Custom Actions.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee537543.aspx
For Rights mask, you can use the values from the below site separated by semicolons to allow only permitted user to see/use the Custom Action.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.sharepoint.spbasepermissions.aspx

Custom Actions

Let’s say now, that after you have a new Ribbon menu to start the Vacation Request workflow, you want a similar menu on the List Item Menu so that users can start a workflow by right-clicking over an item, like below:


To do this, you need to create a new Custom Action of type List Item Menu. You can find the Custom Action Ribbon button in the list summary page for the Vacation Request list in SPD. If you click it, you will be presented with the following options. In this example, please choose List Item Menu.



In the dialog that follows, please choose Initiate workflow option and select the ‘Button – Vacation Approval’ workflow which was created during the creation of Quick Step so that two UIs will start the same workflow. And Click OK.



That’s it. You created the menu. If you go to the Vacation Request list, choose one item, and see the list item menu, you can find it.

Known Issue

There are some known issues for the Quick Steps and Custom Actions feature.

• After starting the workflow, it goes to the site default page rather than to the list
• Following option in workflow summary page is turned off by default for the workflow created from Quick Steps
  
• If you click the New button from the Custom Actions slab, it automatically creates a View Ribbon type Custom Action

SSL - Images to add

SharePoint 2010- Create a New Quick Step & Custom Actions Creating a new Quick Step allows you to add a ribbon item to perform a custom action, such as a workflow. When you create this Quick Step users can easily activate the workflow from the Ribbon. Below is a screenshot of the configured Quick Step in the ribbon: To create this, from the Browser, select the List Ribbon and then select the Library Tab and the New Quick Step button. From here, SharePoint Designer will open and you will be able to enter the data for the Quick Step: You will notice that once you select ok you are redirected to the list page in SharePoint Designer and your Quick Step is listed under the Custom Action section. Also notice the Ribbon. You will see that you have another location to create the custom actions. From this menu you can see that we can create the custom action in different locations and when you click one of those options you will see we have more options than just linking to a workflow. When you select one of the items, you will see a similar entry screen that allows you to select the custom action you want to complete. You can navigate to a form, start a workflow or navigate to a URL. Below are some screenshots with samples of the locations that you can add the items. I used a document library, so I don't have an example from the new item form that you would have in a list.  Comments