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Managing domain users in Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials

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Applies To: Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials

When you join Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials to an Active Directory domain, you can import up to 25 domain user accounts so that they appear in the Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials Dashboard. However, you cannot use the Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials Dashboard to manage the domain user accounts. To manage the domain user accounts, you must use the administrative tools that are available within the domain.

After you join Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials to a domain, you can no longer use the Dashboard to add local user accounts to server. The reason for this is that when you join Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials to a domain, it is expected that you will give the domain user accounts permission to access the shared resources on the storage server, and then remove the local user accounts from Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials.

To give a domain user account permission to access the shared resources on the storage server

  1. In the Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials Dashboard, right-click a local user account, and then click View the account properties.

  2. In Properties for <User>, click the Shared folders tab, and then write down the level of access settings that the user account has for the various shared folders.

  3. In the Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials Dashboard, right-click the domain user account that corresponds to the same local user account, and then click View the account properties.

  4. In Properties for <User> for the domain user account, click the Shared folders tab, and then set the access level for each shared folder to be the same as the settings for the local user account.

  5. Click Apply or OK to save your changes.

After you assign permissions to the domain user accounts, you can remove the local version of the user account from Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials.

Note

When you join the storage server to a domain, Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials inherits the password policy that is set by the domain controller. As a result, the Set the password policy task in the Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials Dashboard is not valid when the server is joined to the domain.