NetworkService Account

The NetworkService account is a predefined local account used by the service control manager. This account is not recognized by the security subsystem, so you cannot specify its name in a call to the LookupAccountName function. It has minimum privileges on the local computer and acts as the computer on the network.

This account can be specified in a call to the CreateService and ChangeServiceConfig functions. Note that this account does not have a password, so any password information that you provide in this call is ignored. While the security subsystem localizes this account name, the SCM does not support localized names. Therefore, you will receive a localized name for this account from the LookupAccountSid function, but the name of the account must be NTВ AUTHORITY\NetworkService when you call CreateService or ChangeServiceConfig, regardless of the locale, or unexpected results can occur.

A service that runs in the context of the NetworkService account presents the computer’s credentials to remote servers. By default, the remote token contains SIDs for the Everyone and Authenticated Users groups. The user SID is created from the SECURITY_NETWORK_SERVICE_RID value.

The NetworkService account has its own subkey under the HKEY_USERS registry key. Therefore, the HKEY_CURRENT_USER registry key is associated with the NetworkService account.

The NetworkService account has the following privileges:

• SE_ASSIGNPRIMARYTOKEN_NAME (disabled)
• SE_AUDIT_NAME (disabled)
• SE_CHANGE_NOTIFY_NAME (enabled)
• SE_CREATE_GLOBAL_NAME (enabled)
• SE_IMPERSONATE_NAME (enabled)
• SE_INCREASE_QUOTA_NAME (disabled)
• SE_SHUTDOWN_NAME (disabled)
• SE_UNDOCK_NAME (disabled)
• Any privileges assigned to users and authenticated users

Local Accounts

Applies to

• Windows 10
• Windows Server 2019
• Windows Server 2016

This reference topic for IT professionals describes the default local user accounts for servers, including how to manage these built-in accounts on a member or standalone server.

About local user accounts

Local user accounts are stored locally on the server. These accounts can be assigned rights and permissions on a particular server, but on that server only. Local user accounts are security principals that are used to secure and manage access to the resources on a standalone or member server for services or users.

This topic describes the following:

For information about security principals, see Security Principals.

Default local user accounts

The default local user accounts are built-in accounts that are created automatically when you install Windows.

After Windows is installed, the default local user accounts cannot be removed or deleted. In addition, default local user accounts do not provide access to network resources.

Default local user accounts are used to manage access to the local server’s resources based on the rights and permissions that are assigned to the account. The default local user accounts, and the local user accounts that you create, are located in the Users folder. The Users folder is located in the Local Users and Groups folder in the local Computer Management Microsoft Management Console (MMC). Computer Management is a collection of administrative tools that you can use to manage a single local or remote computer. For more information, see How to manage local accounts later in this topic.

Default local user accounts are described in the following sections.

Administrator account

The default local Administrator account is a user account for the system administrator. Every computer has an Administrator account (SID S-1-5-domain-500, display name Administrator). The Administrator account is the first account that is created during the Windows installation.

The Administrator account has full control of the files, directories, services, and other resources on the local computer. The Administrator account can create other local users, assign user rights, and assign permissions. The Administrator account can take control of local resources at any time simply by changing the user rights and permissions.

The default Administrator account cannot be deleted or locked out, but it can be renamed or disabled.

In Windows 10 and Windows Server 2016, Windows setup disables the built-in Administrator account and creates another local account that is a member of the Administrators group. Members of the Administrators groups can run apps with elevated permissions without using the Run as Administrator option. Fast User Switching is more secure than using Runas or different-user elevation.

Account group membership

By default, the Administrator account is installed as a member of the Administrators group on the server. It is a best practice to limit the number of users in the Administrators group because members of the Administrators group on a local server have Full Control permissions on that computer.

The Administrator account cannot be deleted or removed from the Administrators group, but it can be renamed.

Security considerations

Because the Administrator account is known to exist on many versions of the Windows operating system, it is a best practice to disable the Administrator account when possible to make it more difficult for malicious users to gain access to the server or client computer.

You can rename the Administrator account. However, a renamed Administrator account continues to use the same automatically assigned security identifier (SID), which can be discovered by malicious users. For more information about how to rename or disable a user account, see Disable or activate a local user account and Rename a local user account.

As a security best practice, use your local (non-Administrator) account to sign in and then use Run as administrator to accomplish tasks that require a higher level of rights than a standard user account. Do not use the Administrator account to sign in to your computer unless it is entirely necessary. For more information, see Run a program with administrative credentials.

In comparison, on the Windows client operating system, a user with a local user account that has Administrator rights is considered the system administrator of the client computer. The first local user account that is created during installation is placed in the local Administrators group. However, when multiple users run as local administrators, the IT staff has no control over these users or their client computers.

In this case, Group Policy can be used to enable secure settings that can control the use of the local Administrators group automatically on every server or client computer. For more information about Group Policy, see Group Policy Overview.

NoteВ В Blank passwords are not allowed in the versions designated in the Applies To list at the beginning of this topic.

ImportantВ В Even when the Administrator account has been disabled, it can still be used to gain access to a computer by using safe mode. In the Recovery Console or in safe mode, the Administrator account is automatically enabled. When normal operations are resumed, it is disabled.

Guest account

The Guest account is disabled by default on installation. The Guest account lets occasional or one-time users, who do not have an account on the computer, temporarily sign in to the local server or client computer with limited user rights. By default, the Guest account has a blank password. Because the Guest account can provide anonymous access, it is a security risk. For this reason, it is a best practice to leave the Guest account disabled, unless its use is entirely necessary.

Account group membership

By default, the Guest account is the only member of the default Guests group (SID S-1-5-32-546), which lets a user sign in to a server. On occasion, an administrator who is a member of the Administrators group can set up a user with a Guest account on one or more computers.

Security considerations

When enabling the Guest account, only grant limited rights and permissions. For security reasons, the Guest account should not be used over the network and made accessible to other computers.

In addition, the guest user in the Guest account should not be able to view the event logs. After the Guest account is enabled, it is a best practice to monitor the Guest account frequently to ensure that other users cannot use services and other resources, such as resources that were unintentionally left available by a previous user.

HelpAssistant account (installed with a Remote Assistance session)

The HelpAssistant account is a default local account that is enabled when a Remote Assistance session is run. This account is automatically disabled when no Remote Assistance requests are pending.

HelpAssistant is the primary account that is used to establish a Remote Assistance session. The Remote Assistance session is used to connect to another computer running the Windows operating system, and it is initiated by invitation. For solicited remote assistance, a user sends an invitation from their computer, through e-mail or as a file, to a person who can provide assistance. After the user’s invitation for a Remote Assistance session is accepted, the default HelpAssistant account is automatically created to give the person who provides assistance limited access to the computer. The HelpAssistant account is managed by the Remote Desktop Help Session Manager service.

Security considerations

The SIDs that pertain to the default HelpAssistant account include:

SID: S-1-5- -13, display name Terminal Server User. This group includes all users who sign in to a server with Remote Desktop Services enabled. Note that, in Windows Server 2008, Remote Desktop Services are called Terminal Services.

SID: S-1-5- -14, display name Remote Interactive Logon. This group includes all users who connect to the computer by using a remote desktop connection. This group is a subset of the Interactive group. Access tokens that contain the Remote Interactive Logon SID also contain the Interactive SID.

For the Windows Server operating system, Remote Assistance is an optional component that is not installed by default. You must install Remote Assistance before it can be used.

For details about the HelpAssistant account attributes, see the following table.

HelpAssistant account attributes

S-1-5- -13 (Terminal Server User), S-1-5- -14 (Remote Interactive Logon)

Service Accounts

Applies to

• Windows 10
• Windows Server 2016

This topic for the IT professional explains group and standalone managed service accounts, and the computer-specific virtual computer account, and it points to resources about these service accounts.

Overview

A service account is a user account that is created explicitly to provide a security context for services running on Windows Server operating systems. The security context determines the service’s ability to access local and network resources. The Windows operating systems rely on services to run various features. These services can be configured through the applications, the Services snap-in, or Task Manager, or by using Windows PowerShell.

This topic contains information about the following types of service accounts:

Standalone managed service accounts

A managed service account is designed to isolate domain accounts in crucial applications, such as Internet Information Services (IIS), and eliminate the need for an administrator to manually administer the service principal name (SPN) and credentials for the accounts.

To use managed service accounts, the server on which the application or service is installed must be running at least Windows ServerВ 2008В R2. One managed service account can be used for services on a single computer. Managed service accounts cannot be shared between multiple computers, and they cannot be used in server clusters where a service is replicated on multiple cluster nodes. For this scenario, you must use a group managed service account. For more information, see Group Managed Service Accounts Overview.

In addition to the enhanced security that is provided by having individual accounts for critical services, there are four important administrative benefits associated with managed service accounts:

You can create a class of domain accounts that can be used to manage and maintain services on local computers.

Unlike domain accounts in which administrators must reset manually passwords, the network passwords for these accounts are automatically reset.

You do not have to complete complex SPN management tasks to use managed service accounts.

Administrative tasks for managed service accounts can be delegated to non-administrators.

Software requirements

Managed service accounts apply to the Windows operating systems that are designated in the Applies To list at the beginning of this topic.

Group managed service accounts

Group managed service accounts are an extension of the standalone managed service accounts, which were introduced in Windows ServerВ 2008В R2. These are managed domain accounts that provide automatic password management and simplified service principal name (SPN) management, including delegation of management to other administrators.

The group managed service account provides the same functionality as a standalone managed service account within the domain, but it extends that functionality over multiple servers. When connecting to a service that is hosted on a server farm, such as Network Load Balancing, the authentication protocols that support mutual authentication require all instances of the services to use the same principal. When group managed service accounts are used as service principals, the Windows Server operating system manages the password for the account instead of relying on the administrator to manage the password.

The Microsoft Key Distribution Service (kdssvc.dll) provides the mechanism to securely obtain the latest key or a specific key with a key identifier for an Active Directory account. This service was introduced in Windows Server 2012, and it does not run on previous versions of the Windows Server operating system. The Key Distribution Service shares a secret, which is used to create keys for the account. These keys are periodically changed. For a group managed service account, the domain controller computes the password on the key that is provided by the Key Distribution Services, in addition to other attributes of the group managed service account.

Practical applications

Group managed service accounts provide a single identity solution for services running on a server farm, or on systems that use Network Load Balancing. By providing a group managed service account solution, services can be configured for the group managed service account principal, and the password management is handled by the operating system.

By using a group managed service account, services or service administrators do not need to manage password synchronization between service instances. The group managed service account supports hosts that are kept offline for an extended time period and the management of member hosts for all instances of a service. This means that you can deploy a server farm that supports a single identity to which existing client computers can authenticate without knowing the instance of the service to which they are connecting.

Failover clusters do not support group managed service account s. However, services that run on top of the Cluster service can use a group managed service account or a standalone managed service account if they are a Windows service, an App pool, a scheduled task, or if they natively support group managed service account or standalone managed service accounts.

Software requirements

Group managed service accounts can only be configured and administered on computers running at least Windows Server 2012, but they can be deployed as a single service identity solution in domains that still have domain controllers running operating systems earlier than Windows Server 2012. There are no domain or forest functional level requirements.

A 64-bit architecture is required to run the Windows PowerShell commands that are used to administer group managed service accounts.

A managed service account is dependent on encryption types supported by Kerberos. When a client computer authenticates to a server by using Kerberos protocol, the domain controller creates a Kerberos service ticket that is protected with encryption that the domain controller and the server support. The domain controller uses the account’s msDS-SupportedEncryptionTypes attribute to determine what encryption the server supports, and if there is no attribute, it assumes that the client computer does not support stronger encryption types. The Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) should always be explicitly configured for managed service accounts. If computers that host the managed service account are configured to not support RC4, authentication will always fail.

NoteВ В Introduced in WindowsВ ServerВ 2008В R2, the Data Encryption Standard (DES) is disabled by default. For more information about supported encryption types, see Changes in Kerberos Authentication.

Group managed service accounts are not applicable in Windows operating systems prior to Windows Server 2012.

Virtual accounts

Virtual accounts were introduced in Windows ServerВ 2008В R2 and WindowsВ 7, and are managed local accounts that provide the following features to simplify service administration:

The virtual account is automatically managed.

The virtual account can access the network in a domain environment.

No password management is required. For example, if the default value is used for the service accounts during SQL Server setup on Windows ServerВ 2008В R2, a virtual account that uses the instance name as the service name is established in the format NT SERVICE\ .

Services that run as virtual accounts access network resources by using the credentials of the computer account in the format \ $.

For information about how to configure and use virtual service accounts, see Service Accounts Step-by-Step Guide.

Software requirements

Virtual accounts apply to the Windows operating systems that are designated in the Applies To list at the beginning of this topic.

See also

The following table provides links to additional resources that are related to standalone managed service accounts, group managed service accounts, and virtual accounts.

Attribute	Value