Create users and groups - Windows Tutorial

- [Narrator] One of the most important jobs as a network administrator is to secure the data and resources on the network, and protect what your users create and have access to. While this is an extensive topic, we'll provide a framework here that you can use to create a system to meet your specific needs. Let's start by creating a design for managing your users by defining the groups they'll be a part of. You can define a structure based on the departments that already exist in your network, such as sales, inventory, or research, or you could design groups that define the users' roles, such as managers, sales staff, accounting staff, and tech support. Perhaps if you administer a small business like a landscaping company, you would want to create groups that define the employees. Your groups could include installation, equipment operators, and maintenance. Whatever you decide, the purpose of designing a group structure is to make it easier to manage your users. You'll create the groups, then add users to them, and then what you configure for the group applies to all of the users in it. This is much more efficient and effective than managing individuals one by one. Once you define the structure of your local network or small business, you're ready to create the groups. To create a group in Windows 11 Pro, and note that you can't do this on the Home version, open Computer Management. I'll right-click the Start button and select it from the list. Expand System Tools and click Local Users and Groups. Then click Groups. There are quite a few default groups, and you can use those if they suit your needs. Some will populate by default, like Administrators. You can see that I'm the only administrator here. To create your own group, right-click an empty area of the right pane and click New Group. Give the group a name. I'll type Sales. Create a description. And click Create. Now, click Close. Repeat to create all of the groups you'll need. I'll go ahead and create Inventory and Advertising. Now, let's create some users to put into these groups. You'll need to create a user for everyone in your company. Although this might take some time, it's well worth the effort in the long run. In the left pane, click Users. Right-click an empty area in the right pane and click New User. Fill out the required information, and don't create a password. However, do check the box that requires a user to create one when they log in. Repeat for every user that needs an account, and click Close when finished. I'll create three users now. To add a user to a group, double-click the user and click the Member Of tab. Users you created earlier will already be a member of the Users group. To add the user to another group, click Add. Click the name of the group, and click Okay. I'm going to add Bob to Sales. I'll also add Jose to Inventory, and Alex to Advertising. Now, you're ready to work with a resource. Right-click a folder you've created anywhere on your computer. I've created a folder on the desktop called Shared Files. I'll right-click it and choose Show More Options. I'll click Properties, and from there, I'll click the Security tab. This resource, like others, already has users and groups configured, as well as default permissions. You can edit these permissions, remove groups, remove users, and add the groups of users you've created, if you like. Here's how to add a group to a resource and configure permissions for the group. From the Security tab, click Edit. Now, click Add. Now, type the name of a group you've created. I'll type Inventory. I'll click Okay, and now, I'm ready to work with this. I can choose the permissions to apply, and then click Apply. I'll want inventory to have full control of these shared files, so I'll select Full Control, and then click Okay. Continue to make changes as desired, but leave this window open when you're done. As you can see, the Everyone group has access to your Shared Files folder. That might not be what you want. If that's the case, click Everyone, and click Edit. From here, you can delete the Everyone group or apply specific permissions. Because permissions are cumulative, to best protect a specific resource, you can configure the Everyone group to only have read access. This means everyone can read the folder, but only specific groups you configured with other permissions can act on the folder. After you've made your choices, click Okay, and Okay again. Continue to explore, and when you're finished adding users and placing them into groups, continue on.