-1

Windows 7 Home Premium has local users and groups mmc console snap-in disabled: W7Home - snapin disabled

Is there any custom utility I can use to manage my accounts? I need no more than adding users and email addresses to have some test accounts for my development purposes.

I don't want to use regular "user accounts" tool in control panel to add users because:

  • I don't want them at my welcome screen
  • I can't assign mail address to them
Community
  • 1
Janis Veinbergs
  • 1,585
  • 4
  • 23
  • 34

3 Answers3

2

The MMC is disabled since Home Premium does not support active diretory users and the net effect is that it does not support the Users and Groups MMC snap-in.

After some research it is revealed that the only way to do this is using the command-line or PowerShell scripting. There is currently no third party tools simplying this funcationality for Windows Home.

I would suggest looking at either building a Virtual Machine using Windows XP/Vista/7 Professional for this purpose, or alternatively upgrade to Windows 7 Professional.

BinaryMisfit
  • 1,593
  • 2
  • 15
  • 30
  • Programmatically I am able to create new users, set their properties and use them when logging in my website and they are not on my welcome screen. That's all i want - use an existing, simple tool, not to create my own. – Janis Veinbergs Feb 19 '10 at 09:59
  • 1
    I don't think the functionality was disabled at the kernel level if it supports this functionality at the command line or scripting level. Microsoft has a history of enforcing licensing restrictions (and add sales of higher-end versions of Windows) by arbitrarily limiting settings via a flag in the registry, so it's more likely there is a flag being checked in the registry for the version of Windows and that is killing the snapin (there have been several writeups in the past on the "true" difference between Windows Server and Windows Workstation if you Google it). – Bart Silverstrim Feb 19 '10 at 11:05
  • And no, I'm not suggesting you search for the flag and disable it to get higher functionality from Windows. A)it's against licensing and B)last I'd read Microsoft found people turning Windows Workstation into Windows Server through a single change to the registry so they added worker threads whose only job is to monitor the Registry for changes that affect the version of Windows and change it back to prevent piracy (I think there were people doing this to get around connection limits with IIS or something...it's been several years since I read about it.) – Bart Silverstrim Feb 19 '10 at 11:07
  • @Bart Thanks I edited my answer and removed the kernel disable line since your right it is done at registry level. – BinaryMisfit Feb 19 '10 at 11:15
  • @Diago-glad to give clarification :-) Many new administrators might be surprised at how little difference there really is among Windows versions given the price and licensing differences. – Bart Silverstrim Feb 19 '10 at 12:35
  • You should edit your answer as MMC is NOT disabled, just some snap-ins are (not all). – Janis Veinbergs Feb 19 '10 at 15:28
2

While you can't use the MMC, there should be a control panel applet allowing local user administration. There's always been a limited applet since XP Home.

'nusermgr.cpl' and 'control userpasswords2' should still work I believe.

If you're looking for a scriptable means to do this you can use 'net user' to add/modify local accounts, (I'm about 90% sure this works for the various Home flavors of Windows) and then add a registry key, via 'reg add', to hide it from the Welcome Screen (See: http://www.petri.co.il/hide_a_user_from_the_welcome_screen_in_windows_xp.htm).

sinping
  • 2,070
  • 14
  • 13
-1

Now it is, I missed this functionality too so I created clone, you can download it here: http://primocode.blogspot.com/2015/06/prils-local-users-and-groups-for.html. It is not quite finished yet but basic functionalities work ok.

user286725
  • 1
  • Welcome to Server Fault! Whilst this may theoretically answer the question, [it would be preferable](//meta.stackoverflow.com/q/8259) to include the essential parts of the answer here, and provide the link for reference. – Mark Henderson Jun 24 '15 at 12:37