Membership in Account Operators, Domain Admins, or Enterprise Admins, or equivalent, is the minimum required to complete this procedure. Review details about using the appropriate accounts and group memberships at https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=83477.

To copy a user account

  1. To open Active Directory Users and Computers, click Start, click Control Panel, double-click Administrative Tools, and then double-click Active Directory Users and Computers.

  2. In the console tree, click Users.

    Where?

    • Active Directory Users and Computers\domain node\Users

  3. In the details pane, right-click the user account that you want to copy, and then click Copy.

  4. In First name, type the user's first name.

  5. In Last name, type the user's last name.

  6. Modify Full name to add initials or reverse the order of the first and last names.

  7. In User logon name, type the user logon name, click the user principal name (UPN) suffix in the drop-down list, and then click Next.

    If the user will use a different name to log on to computers running Windows 95, Windows 98, or Windows NT, you can change the user logon name as it appears in User logon name (pre-Windows 2000) to the different name.

  8. In Password and Confirm password, type the user's password, and then select the appropriate password options.

    If the user account from which the new user account was copied was disabled, click Account is disabled to enable the new account.

Additional considerations

  • To perform this procedure, you must be a member of the Account Operators group, Domain Admins group, or Enterprise Admins group in Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS), or you must have been delegated the appropriate authority. As a security best practice, consider using Run as to perform this procedure.

  • Another way to open Active Directory Users and Computers is to click Start, click Run, and then type dsa.msc.

  • After you create the user account, you can edit the user account properties to enter additional user account information.

  • Only the most commonly used attributes, such as logon hours, workstation restrictions, and account expiration restrictions are transferred to the copied user by default.

  • You can modify which default attributes are carried over to a newly copied user or specify additional attributes that will be copied to the new user. To do this, open the Active Directory Schema snap-in, view the desired attribute properties, and select (or clear) the Attribute is copied when duplicating user check box. You can modify or add only the attributes that are instances of the user class.

    If the Active Directory Schema snap-in is not installed, you can install it. For more information, click Start, click Help and Support, and then search for the topic "Active Directory Schema," which contains information about how to install, secure, and view the Active Directory Schema snap-in.

  • You can also perform the task in this procedure by using the Active Directory module for Windows PowerShell. To open the Active Directory module, click Start, click Administrative Tools, and then click Active Directory Module for Windows PowerShell. For more information, see Copy a User Account (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=138371). For more information about Windows PowerShell, see Windows PowerShell (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=102372).

Additional references

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