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Stored User Names and Passwords overview

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Applies To: Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2003 with SP1, Windows Server 2003 with SP2

Stored User Names and Passwords overview

When you log on to a computer running an operating system in the Microsoft® Windows Server 2003 family, you can supply a user name and password. This becomes your default security context for connecting to other computers on networks and over the Internet. However, this user name and password may not provide access to all of your resources. Stored User Names and Passwords provides a way to store these as a part of your profile.

There may be cases where you want to use different names and passwords for connecting to different resources. Examples could include:

  • You want to log on to your computer with a standard account, but connect to certain computers as an administrator for maintenance and troubleshooting reasons.

  • You work at home and want to use your work user name and password to connect to work-related servers.

  • Your account is in a domain and you need access to computers in an untrusted domain.

  • You want to access Web sites with user names and passwords that are specific to each of those sites.

For example, administrators may log on to the network using their standard user name and password but need to connect to a remote server with administrative access to perform specific functions. In this case, the user must be able to supply a different user name and password for this connection. The user may also want to store this user name and password for reuse at a later date. This is the function of Stored User Names and Passwords.

A user may also need to connect to secure Web servers using a specific user name and password. Stored User Names and Passwords allows users to connect to different Web servers using supplied user names and passwords and store them for future reuse. The user names and passwords can be either specific to a unique Web server or they can be generic so that they will be supplied when the user attempts to log on to a secured Web server.

Stored User Names and Passwords also stores saved information as part of a user's profile. This means that these user names and passwords will travel with the user from computer to computer anywhere on the network.