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A local administrator is a user who is member of the local Administrators group. Any user who is a member of the local Administrators group has full access to that computer. This article describes how to grant local administrator permissions to a user in Windows Server 2003/2008.

Local User Account

This section describes how to grant local administrator permissions to a local user account.

1. Click Start, select Administrative Tools and click Computer Management.

2. In Computer Management, click Local Users and Groups.

3. In Local Users and Groups, navigate to the user you wish to grant local administrator permission.

4. Right click the user and click Properties.

5. Click the Member Of tab.

6. In the Member Of tab, click Add.

7. In Select Groups, type in Administrators and click Check Names. Click OK when you are done. Click OK again to save the changes.

Domain User Account

This section describes how to grant local administrator permissions to a domain user account. Use this if the server is an Active Directory domain controller.

1. Click Start, select Administrative Tools and click Active Directory Users and Computers.

2. In Active Directory Users and Computers, navigate to the user you want to grant local administrator permission.

3. Right click the user and click Properties.

4. Click the Member Of tab.

5. In the Member Of tab, click Add.

6. In Select Groups, type in Administrators and click Check Names. Click OK when you are done. Click OK again to save the changes.