Casting your net
Although any user can use the Net User command, the user must have Administrator rights in order to do anything to anyone else using the command. Therefore, before you drop to the command prompt to use the command, make sure you’re logged on as Administrator or as a user with Administrator rights.

When you launch the command prompt, type net user and press [Enter]. When you do, you’ll see all of the users on the network.

If you want to view detailed information about an individual user, type net user username and press [Enter]. Just replace username with the name of the user you want information on. When you do, you’ll see a listing on the screen like this:


User name                                jsheesley
Full Name                                John Sheesley       
Comment
User's comment
Country code                             000 (System Default)
Account active                           Yes
Account expires                          Never

Password last set                        12/19/2000 4:18 PM
Password expires                         3/31/2001 3:05 PM
Password changeable               12/19/2000 4:18 PM
Password required                        Yes
User may change password                 Yes

Workstations allowed                     All
Logon script
User profile
Home directory
Last logon                               2/13/2001 11:41 AM

Logon hours allowed               All

Local Group Memberships                  *Administrators *Users
Global Group Memberships                 *None
The command completed successfully.


Net User includes other command line switches you can use to affect user accounts on your network. When you enter the command in conjunction with the switches, make sure you specify the username you want to affect. To view all of the switches, type net help user and press [Enter]. These switches include:

Password—This switch changes the user’s password. Type the new password right after the username switch (for example, net user jsheesley MyNewPassword). If you follow the username switch with a space and *, after you press [Enter], Windows will present you with a prompt to enter the password. The password won’t display when you type it at a password prompt.
/DOMAIN—Performs the operation on a domain controller of the current domain.
/ADD—Adds a user account to the user accounts database.
/DELETE—Removes a user account from the user accounts database.
/ACTIVE:—Type /ACTIVE:YES to activate the account. /ACTIVE:NO deactivates the account.
/COMMENT:”text”—You can use this command to provide a comment about the user. You can enter up to 48 characters as a description. Make sure you enclose the comment in quotation marks.
/COUNTRYCODE:—This switch allows you to change the operating system country code for the user. This will cause Windows to implement a language file for a user's help and error messages. A value of 0 signifies the default country code.
/EXPIRES:—This switch allows you to set an expiration date for the user. You can either enter a date in mm/dd/yyyy format or enter a value of NEVER. NEVER sets no expiration for the account.
/FULLNAME:"name"—This switch changes the user's full name, not the username. Replace name with the user’s name enclosed in quotation marks.
/HOMEDIR:pathname—This switch sets the path (pathname) for the user's home directory. The path must already exist for the switch to work properly.
/PASSWORDCHG:—If you type /PASSWORDCHG:YES, users can change their own passwords. Conversely, setting it to NO disables password changing. The default is YES.
/PASSWORDREQ:—This switch specifies whether a user account must have a password. The default is YES, but you can type /PASSWORDREQ:NO to disable passwords for the account.
/PROFILEPATH:pathname—This switch sets a path for the user's logon profile.
/SCRIPTPATH:pathname—This switch sets the location of the user's logon script.
/TIMES:—This switch allows you to set the user’s logon hours. If you set the value to ALL, the user can always log on. The syntax is reasonably complicated if you want to set available logon times. Times can only be expressed in one-hour increments. Starting times/days and ending times/days are separated by a dash (-). Days, and times in the same day, are separated by a comma (,). Multiple day/time combinations are separated by a semicolon (;). This might be a setting that would be more efficient using a GUI.
/USERCOMMENT:"text"—This switch sets the User Comment field shown above. Don’t confuse it with the Comment switch just mentioned.
/WORKSTATIONS:—This switch allows you to specify workstation names the user can log in from. By default, a user can use any workstation. You can specify this explicitly by following this switch with an asterisk (*). To limit a user, type in individual workstation names. You can enter as many as eight workstation names, separating each one with a comma.