Add domain group to local computer administrators command line

Is it possible to add domain group to local group via command line?

I can add specific users or domain users, but not a group. I would prefer to stick with a command line, but vbscript might be okay. We are looking for a solution that doesn't involve GPOs because this is just for a couple of rooms on our campus and just once.

net localgroup "Administrators" "myDomain\Username" /add

works but

net localgroup "Administrators" "myDomain\Local Computer Administrators" /add

doesnt

3 Answers

net localgroup seems to have a problem if the group name is longer than 20 characters. You can try shortening the group name, at least to verify that character limitation. By the way, net localgroup uses the pre-Windows 2000 name of the group, the sAMAccountName AD attribute.

I would still recommend that you use GPO for this, as it will be easier to add the group to the local Administrators group, especially since you won't have to rename your group. Also, it will be easier to remove the domain group from the local group once the need has passed.

I know you asked for commandline but you can do this with powershell quite simply (win2016 and later)

Add-LocalGroupMember -Group administrators -member domain\user

if you want to do this via commandline explicitly, you can wrap this in a commandline by calling powershell with this command:

powershell -command "Add-LocalGroupMember -Group administrators -member domain\user"

Add the group to the Administrators group by going to

control userpasswords2

and then press the Add button.

Or, use

lusrmgr.msc