Create a local user account via Windows 10 MDM

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This blog post uses the Accounts configuration service provider (CSP), to create a local user account on Windows 10 devices. This area was added in Windows 10, version 1803, which is currently available as Insider Preview build.

This week is all about creating local user accounts via Windows 10 MDM. That can for example make life a bit easier with troubleshooting an offline device. A fallback account. In this post I’ll show how this can be achieved by using the Accounts CSP. I’ll show the available nodes and I’ll show how to configure them. I’ll end this post by showing the end-user experience. Also, spoiler alert, it’s good to note that this is not a pretty administrator experience at this moment, but I’m pretty sure that will be fixed when it’s a built-in configuration in Microsoft Intune.

Overview

Let’s start by having a look at the tree of the Accounts CSP.

Available nodes

The Accounts CSP contains nodes for renaming a computer account and for the creation of a user account. To get a better understanding of the different nodes, it’s good to walk through the available nodes. Specifically those related to user accounts, as those are the subject of this post. Let’s go through those related nodes.

  • .Device/Vendor/MSFT/Account – Defines the root node for the Accounts CSP;
  • Users – Defines the interior node for the user account information;
  • [UserName] – Defines the username of the new local user account;
  • Password – Defines the password for the new local user account;
  • LocalUserGroup – Defines the local user group for the new local user account.

Configurable nodes

There are basically two configurable nodes related to the creation of a local user account. The Password node and the LocalUserGroup node. The [UserName] node should contain the username and can be anything. The table below provides an overview of the configurable nodes.

Node Value Description
Password

String

 This required setting allows the administrator to set the password for the new local administrator account.
LocalUserGroup Integer
1 – (Default) Users
2 – Administrators		 This optional setting allows the administrator to control the local user group of the new local administrator account.

Note: The password value can be any valid string and is visible as plaintext in the Azure portal.

Configure

Now let’s continue by having a look at the required and optional configuration to create a local user account on the device. In other words, create a device configuration profile with the previously mentioned custom OMA-URI settings. The following three steps walk through the creation of that device configuration profile. After that simply assign the created profile to a user or device group.

1 Open the Azure portal and navigate to Intune > Device configuration > Profiles;
2 On the Devices configuration – Profiles blade, click Create profile to open the Create profile blade;
3a

On the Create profile blade, provide the following information and click Create;

  • Name: Provide a valid name;
  • Description: (Optional) Provide a description;
  • Platform: Select Windows 10 and later;
  • Profile type: Select Custom;
  • Settings: See step 3b and 3c.
3b

LU_PasswordOn the Custom OMA-URI Settings blade, provide the following information and click Add to open the Add row blade. On the Add row blade, provide the following information and click OK;

  • Name: Provide a valid name;
  • Description: (Optional) Provide a description;
  • OMA-URI: ./Device/Vendor/MSFT/Accounts/Users/TestUser/Password;
  • Data type: Select String;
  • Value: P@ssw0rd!.
3c

LU_GroupOn the Custom OMA-URI Settings blade, provide the following information and click Add to open the Add row blade. On the Add row blade, provide the following information and click OK (and click OK in the Custom OMA-URI blade);

  • Name: Provide a valid name;
  • Description: (Optional) Provide a description;
  • OMA-URI: ./Device/Vendor/MSFT/Accounts/Users/TestUser/LocalUserGroup;
  • Data type: Select Integer;
  • Value: 2.

Note: At some point in time this configuration will probably become available in the Azure portal without the requirement of creating a custom OMA-URI.

End-user experience

Let’s end this post by having a quick look at the end-user experience. There’s actually not that much to be shown. Only the created account. Below on the left is a screenshot of the default configuration of the created user account, including the full name, and below on the right is a screenshot of the group memberships of the created user account.

TestUser01 TestUser02

Note: The reporting in the Azure portal still provides me with a remediation failed error message, while the actual account creation was a success.

More information

For more information about the Accounts CSP, refer to this article named Accounts CSP.

126 thoughts on “Create a local user account via Windows 10 MDM”

  1. Thanks for sharing Peter. Especially the ‘Domain/ComputerName’ is a very nice CSP for renaming all those Autopilot desktop-guid devices!

    Reply

  3. Does this work only on Windows 10 1803? If not, then it does not appear to be working. I noticed the “; ” at the end of the OMA-URI. Should that be there?

    Reply

  4. Werkt goed.

    Alleen jammer dat het wachtwoord niet wordt aangepast als het account al bestaat op het device. Het werkt dus niet al password – changer voor reeds bestaande accounts.

    Reply

    • Hi Jan,

      I’ll switch to English. This is indeed only for creating new accounts and not for changing the password of existing accounts. If you want to manage something about the builtin administrator and guest account, you can use the Endpoint protection policy.

      Regards, Peter

      Reply

  5. Hi Peter,

    Is there a way to either set the password not to expire or set an expiry time (e.g. 90 days)?

    Reply

  6. Also just noticed that the Integer value of 2 does not place this newly created account into the Administrators group, just the User group. Please advise.

    Reply

  7. Another odd bit is that this account does not appear on the login screen. I have done this with PowerShell and I am able to set the expiry, Administrator group, this account appears as a listed account at the login screen. So I am not sure why this one does not.

    Reply

  8. Hi Peter,

    Please disregard my post in regards to the account not being placed in the local Administrators group. Found a typo in my OMA-URI. However, the other issues are still open.

    Reply

  9. Hi Peter,
    Is there any way we can set the new account created not to enforce for changing the password for initial login?

    Reply

      • Thanks Peter for quick reply.
        I was trying for PS Script but unlucky to accomplish the task since the machine is not joined in AD(Auto pilot – AAD Device) , i am unable to execute the below code.
        Set-ADUser -ChangePasswordAtLogon:$True.
        I have also checked win32_useraccount class and could see only below options for the object “passwordchnagable \ passwordexpires\passwordrequired”
        Could you please suggest me some useful links or your thoughts to achieve ?

        Reply

  11. There seems to be some issues with this in 1709, it automatically logs you into the admin account every time you restart. IT seems to work fine with 1803

    Reply

  12. Hello,

    Let Me begin by saying — Thank you for great articles, have helped us very much.

    We applied this new profile, but we have issues with actually login into these local users. Only workaround I found was to manually “reset” password from lusrmgr.msc for the user to one from policy. If we try to logon without manually setting it, just getting classic incorrect username or password.

    Any ideas?

    Reply

  13. Hello again,

    Figured out the issue – password string was modified after initial profile creation and password “change” in Intune does not sync.

    However, a new question arose – can you remove these local accounts for all devices from Intune? Looking at the Accounts CSP article, and only supported function was ”Add”.

    Reply

  14. Hello Peter,

    Yes, simple PS published to to all devices via Intune resolved the issue.

    However Account CSP is not as “admin/user friendly” as one would wish, for instance, if you rename the account in CSP profile it will create a new user object and not update the existing one. So good thing to remember for less experienced Intune-rs.

    But thank you for all the pointers. Keep up the good job 🙂

    Reply

  16. I’m having the same issue with the local admin being created with the “User must change password at next logon” enabled. If you could provide what setting caused this issue that would be great!

    Reply

  18. Hi ,
    I’ve assumed somebody knows the exact which settings causes problems.

    Anyway, I’ve found old cmd : net user username logonpasswordchg:{yes | no}

    But it fails with the:
    System error 1938 has occurred.

    Logon Failure: EAS policy requires that the user change their password before this operation can be performed.

    Reply

  19. Hello again,

    Back at it again, seems like with recent updates to either OS or Intune, Accounts CSP has become broken for us.

    It was working fine until recently, now when attempting, f.example, running Program “Run as Different User ” with that account returns errror – “Account restrictions are preventing this user from signing in. For example: blank passwords aren’t allowed, sign-in times are limited, or a policy restrictions has been enforced.”

    Safe to mention that any policy restrictions hasn’t been made from our side.

    Any ideas or anyone else is experiencing same issue?

    Reply

  20. Anyone solve for prompting to change password using this method.? Read the comments and didnt see if anyone had worked around this

    Reply

  21. Great article and the steps you’ve outlined are working on a test machine.

    Question: Thinking long-term, I’d like the ability to change the pw per our ISMS (would also be nice to change it when IT admins leave the organization). Do you know of a way to change the password of a local (admin) account in a cloud-only environment?

    I’ve researched doing this using powershell via Intune but I hit my limitations getting the script to execute the actual pw change on the local machine. I also understand the Intune log on the local machine will have the password listed in plain text. So, I assume if using this method, the password needs to be hashed and packaged into a msi?

    Thanks again, and hopefully MS will add the ability to change the local passwords!

    J

    Reply

  24. Hello,

    This is working for me, however, I am unable to create another account with a different name besides “TestUser”

    Shouldn’t it work if I change the “TestUser” name here to “WorkAdministrator” for example? This does not seem to create the account below.

    OMA-URI: ./Device/Vendor/MSFT/Accounts/Users/WorkAdministrator/Password

    and

    OMA-URI: ./Device/Vendor/MSFT/Accounts/Users/WorkAdministrator/LocalUserGroup

    Reply

  26. I and others may be misreading your instructions.
    ./Device/Vendor/MSFT/Accounts/Users/TestUser/Password;

    however, there is no “;” in the string, as can be seen in your screenshot.

    For clarity on your instructions, i think the “;” can be removed. You end the line and use italics to identify what should be used, i don’t think the “;” helps, and just caused confusion for me.

    Since in many programming languages ; is critical as a terminator, I didn’t question it when adding it into my string for Intune.

    Reply

  27. Hi Peter,

    I followed the steps you have mentioned and Local user account got created using intune but it is part of only Users group. Can It be made a part of Administrator group as well?

    Regards,
    Santosh

    Reply

  29. Thx for this great work around, I hope Microsoft will make this possible in the near future without the oma uri settings.
    Just a quick question, I get the same error even if they are created, is there also a workaround to check if the user really is created ?

    Reply

  30. This works great.

    Except, I cannot un-join the domain with this local account unless I remove the “Users” from “Members of:” shown in the test users picture above under what would be TestUsers properties.

    Is there a way where it will only add to the “Administrators” group?

    I see that, integer wise…

    1 – (Default) Users
    2 – Administrators This optional setting allows the administrator to control the local user group of the new local administrator account.

    Reply

      • Hey Peter,

        It works great adding the user to the administrator’s group, but the odd issue I’m having is, it’s also a member of the “users” group at the same time as shown in the picture. I actually have to remove the “users” group from the account leaving only a member of “administrators”.

        While having this account as a member of both users and administrators, It will not allow me to un-join Azure AD with the credentials until its a member of “administrators” only.

        Reply

  31. Hello,

    Is there also a way to add the Local user to the Remote Desktop Users Group and check the box for Password never expires?

    Reply

  32. You can use a powershell or command prompt to make group membership changes. For example –

    net localgroup users AzureAD\full azure username /delete

    Change out users for administrators or another local group name as needed. You can also change /delete to /add. I am using powershell scripts like the above which are running for me through intune without issue.

    Reply

  33. IT has been a year since your blog post and Intune still displays a remediation failed error message, while it actually works.

    Reply

  34. Peter, thank you for this write up, works exactly as specified. I have added this successfully and do get the remediation error as well. Since I have to pass a plain text password, is there an option to force a password change at first login? If not CSP then powershell or net user command? If I have to use powershell or net user then how can I be certain that the script runs after the account is created?

    Reply

  35. Thanks for this Peter, I am testing this in our environment and worked besides the known issues stated (remediation failed etc). My question is I noticed we cannot log into the created account until an Azure AD account has logged in first. Is that normal? Thanks again!

    Reply

  37. Hi all,

    I did have this policy working at first when I was in my initial test phase, now at some point it stopped working. When deploying the profile now I get in error and when you drill down its states under STATE DETIALS ‘
    -2016281112 (Remediation failed)’ does anyone know why this might happen? Not found anything that helps me yet.

    Reply

  38. Peter thanks for another excellent article…I was successfully able to create the local user..but when I am trying to update the password of the local user it’s not working. Is there is a way to update the local user password??

    Reply

  39. Works like a charm, thanks! 🙂

    When will local admin password expire with this solution. Doesn’t seem to set “password never expires”
    Is it possible to set “password never expires” by OMA-URI too?

    Reply

  40. this worked great. all the sudden it has stopped working. I haven’t changed my policy but it wont create the accounts anymore that it once was. I create a new policy and it still doesn’t work. anyone have any suggestions?

    Reply

      • peter,

        this is what i am seeing in event viewer its throwing an error.
        MDM ConfigurationManager: Command failure status. Configuraton Source ID: (52972517-C3FC-493B-8229-CD9F6FD45B0D), Enrollment Type: (MDMDeviceWithAAD), CSP Name: (Accounts), Command Type: (Add: from Replace or Add), Result: (./Vendor/MSFT/Accounts/Users/TestAdmin/LocalUserGroup).

        Reply

          • Peter,
            there was no difference once i had the policy working it was left alone and working until i just happened to check the user accounts for something and i notice the account wasn’t created anymore. i opened a case with MS they were able to reproduce the issue on other tenets and gave a workaround to use the PS script. which works but it stores the PS script in plain text in the log files which isn’t good. So it seems like maybe something broke on their end.

  41. Hi- I have done the configuration as suggested by above but during first time logon through admin account it’s asking password to change.
    Can you please advice how to remove this setting in Azure Intune

    Reply

  42. ”

    Hello,

    This is working for me, however, I am unable to create another account with a different name besides “TestUser”

    Shouldn’t it work if I change the “TestUser” name here to “WorkAdministrator” for example? This does not seem to create the account below.

    i had the same problem. just create a brandnew profile. This worked for me

    OMA-URI: ./Device/Vendor/MSFT/Accounts/Users/WorkAdministrator/Password

    and

    OMA-URI: ./Device/Vendor/MSFT/Accounts/Users/WorkAdministrator/LocalUserGroup”

    Reply

  43. Hi Peter,

    thanks, this worked for me as well, but I am wondering how secure this is? Since the password is entered in plain text in Intune, does it also get sent to / stored on the client in plain text? I can’t find any information on how the connection from Intune cloud to client is secured (I assume it is, but how?) Do you have any info on this?

    Reply

    • Hi Mathias,
      A plain text password is probably never a good idea, no matter the connection between the device and the MDM provider. I haven’t found the plain text password on the device yet. And to answer your question: I don’t have any information to share about the connection more than published by Microsoft.
      Regards, Peter

      Reply

  44. Hello,

    I created user and add local admin rights but policy results -2016281112 (Remediation failed)

    How can i fix this problem?

    Reply

  45. Hi.
    Thank you for this information. I am using it without problem, but I would like to configure it by adding the option that this local user’s password never expires. Would it be possible? What value should I add for it?
    THANKS.

    Reply
  47. Pingback: Challenges while managing administrative privileges on your Azure AD joined Windows 10 devices | Modern Workplace Blog
  49. Pingback: Managing local administrators via Windows 10 MDM – More than just ConfigMgr

  50. Hi Peter,

    Thanks this works well!

    I was wondering now that we have a working admin account “testuser” how we could add a feature to this profile that removes the default administrator account or other accounts.

    Thanks
    PC

    Reply

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