Adding user to local Administrators group in multiple languages

By Przemyslaw Klys Windows September 12, 2015

Everyone now and then, there comes a moment you need to add a user into Administrators group on each computer in domain. It's not a big problem, if all your systems are in one language, or if you have to just add one user to multiple systems which you can easily accomplish with Group Policies. It gets a bit harder if you need to add one user per machine, and even harder if you need to add one user per machine with unknown language.

There are different approaches to this problem and many batch and powershell solutions. One of those approaches is to get the Administrators group name in multiple languages and simply code it in. The other approach which we describe below is to use Domain Admins name which is consistent across the domain and is based on language name of domain controller rather than on system it's used on. We simply scan all local groups for the standard Domain Admins group which should only be available in local Administrators group on local machine, and when that group is found we add the user inside without checking the rest of the groups. It's not the fastest solution but it surely gets the job done without knowing all the Administrators group names in all languages, and additionally you can always use it for different purposes. The last approach described in here is the fastest one and it's using Well-Known-SIDs allowing to add user directly to the group without knowing it's name.

First approach

If you're into old approach (multiply this per each language changing Administrators to respective group names):

net localgroup Administrators Evotec\user1 /add

Second approach

If you would like to go with approach of finding Domain Admins first and then adding a user you can simply use this code:

$gComputerName = $env:COMPUTERNAME # Computer to ADD user to
$gLookFor = "Administratorzy domeny" # Domain Admins group for Domain Controller in Polish Language
$gDomain = "Evotec" # Domain Name
$gUser = "user1" # UserName to ADD

function DoWork($computerName, $groupToLookFor, $domain, $user) {
    cls 
    $groups = get-wmiobject -Query "select * from Win32_Group Where Domain='$computerName'" -ComputerName $computerName 

    Foreach ($group in $($groups.Name)) {
        Write-Host "Checking group $group" -ForegroundColor Magenta
        $members = (Get-LocalGroupMembers -ComputerName $computerName -GroupName $group).Members
        foreach ($member in $members) {
            if ($member -eq $groupToLookFor) { 
                Write-Host "Found $member" -ForegroundColor Magenta
                Write-Host "Adding User $gDomain\$gUser " -ForegroundColor Magenta
                Set-User $computerName $group $domain $user
                Write-Host "Quitting. My job is done." -ForegroundColor Magenta
                exit
            }
        }

    }

}
function Set-User ($computer, $group, $domain, $user) {
    try {
        $de = [ADSI]"WinNT://$computer/$Group,group" 
        $de.psbase.Invoke("Add",([ADSI]"WinNT://$domain/$user").path)
    } catch {
        write-host "User not added, already exists or not running as Administrator" -ForegroundColor Red
    } 
}
function Get-LocalGroupMembers { 
    param( 
        [parameter(Mandatory=$true,ValueFromPipeline=$true,ValueFromPipelineByPropertyName=$true)] 
        [Alias("Name")] 
        [string]$ComputerName, 
        [string]$GroupName = "Administrators" 
    ) 

    begin {} 

    process 
    { 
        # If the account name of the computer object was passed in, it will 
        # end with a $. Get rid of it so it doesn't screw up the WMI query. 
        $ComputerName = $ComputerName.Replace("`$", '') 

        # Initialize an array to hold the results of our query. 
        $arr = @() 

        $wmi = Get-WmiObject -ComputerName $ComputerName -Query ` "SELECT * FROM Win32_GroupUser WHERE GroupComponent=`"Win32_Group.Domain='$ComputerName',Name='$GroupName'`"" 

        # Parse out the username from each result and append it to the array. 
        if ($wmi -ne $null) 
        { 
            foreach ($item in $wmi) 
            { 
                $arr += ($item.PartComponent.Substring($item.PartComponent.IndexOf(',') + 1).Replace('Name=', '').Replace("`"", '')) 
            } 
        } 

        $hash = @{ComputerName=$ComputerName;Members=$arr} 
        return $hash 
    } 

    end{} 
}

DoWork $gComputerName $gLookFor $gDomain $gUser

The output of the script is pretty simple. When run first time:

Checking group Access Control Assistance Operators
Checking group Administrators
Found Administratorzy domeny
Adding User Evotec\user1 
Quitting. My job is done.

The output of the script when run 2nd time on same machine where user already exists:

Checking group Access Control Assistance Operators
Checking group Administrators
Found Administratorzy domeny
Adding User Evotec\user1
User not added, already exists or not running as Administrator
Quitting. My job is done.

As there's not much error checking being done on each level and you're little paranoid you can always add more protection. Of course if you would like to deploy this script to multiple computers and different computer requires different user some modifications are required for this scenario.

Third approach

Our final approach by finding SID of the group (below is a list of all well known SIDs just in case you need one.

$gComputerName = $env:COMPUTERNAME # Computer to ADD user to
$gLookForBySid = "S-1-5-32-569" # group sid Cryptographic Operators
$gDomain = "Evotec" # Domain Name
$gUser = "user1" # UserName to ADD

function DoWork($computerName, $groupSidToLookFor, $domain, $user) {
    cls
    Write-Host "Checking group SID $groupSidToLookFor" -ForegroundColor Magenta 
    $group = Get-GroupBySid $computerName $groupSidToLookFor
    Write-Host "Adding User $gDomain\$gUser to group $group" -ForegroundColor Magenta
    Set-User $computerName $group $domain $user
    Write-Host "Quitting. My job is done." -ForegroundColor Magenta
    exit
}
function Set-User ($computer, $group, $domain, $user) {
    try {
        $de = [ADSI]"WinNT://$computer/$Group,group" 
        $de.psbase.Invoke("Add",([ADSI]"WinNT://$domain/$user").path) 
    } catch {
        write-host "User not added, already exists or not running as Administrator" -ForegroundColor Red
    } 
}
function Get-GroupBySid () {
    param( 
        [parameter(Mandatory=$true,ValueFromPipeline=$true,ValueFromPipelineByPropertyName=$true)] 
        [Alias("Name")] 
        [string]$ComputerName, 
        [string]$GroupNameSid = "S-1-5-32-544"
    ) 
    $objSID = New-Object System.Security.Principal.SecurityIdentifier($GroupNameSid)
    $objgroup = $objSID.Translate( [System.Security.Principal.NTAccount])
    $objgroupname = ($objgroup.Value).Split("\")[1]
    return ,$objgroupname
}

DoWork $gComputerName $gLookForBySid $gDomain $gUser

Successful script output

Checking group SID S-1-5-32-569
Adding User Evotec\user1 to group Cryptographic Operators
Quitting. My job is done.

Something went wrong script output

Checking group SID S-1-5-32-569
Adding User Evotec\user1 to group Cryptographic Operators
User not added, already exists or not running as Administrator
Quitting. My job is done.

Well-known SIDs

A security identifier (SID) is a unique value of variable length that is used to identify a security principal or security group in Windows operating systems. Well-known SIDs are a group of SIDs that identify generic users or generic groups. Their values remain constant across all operating systems.

This information is useful for troubleshooting issues that involve security. It is also useful for potential display problems that may be seen in the ACL editor. An SID may be displayed in the ACL editor instead of in the user or group name.

Well-known SIDs

SID: S-1-0
Name: Null Authority
Description: An identifier authority.
SID: S-1-0-0
Name: Nobody
Description: No security principal.
SID: S-1-1
Name: World Authority
Description: An identifier authority.
SID: S-1-1-0
Name: Everyone
Description: A group that includes all users, even anonymous users and guests. Membership is controlled by the operating system.

Note By default, the Everyone group no longer includes anonymous users on a computer that is running Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2).

SID: S-1-2
Name: Local Authority
Description: An identifier authority.
SID: S-1-2-0
Name: Local
Description: A group that includes all users who have logged on locally.
SID: S-1-2-1
Name: Console Logon
Description: A group that includes users who are logged on to the physical console.

Note Added in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2

SID: S-1-3
Name: Creator Authority
Description: An identifier authority.
SID: S-1-3-0
Name: Creator Owner
Description: A placeholder in an inheritable access control entry (ACE). When the ACE is inherited, the system replaces this SID with the SID for the object's creator.
SID: S-1-3-1
Name: Creator Group
Description: A placeholder in an inheritable ACE. When the ACE is inherited, the system replaces this SID with the SID for the primary group of the object's creator. The primary group is used only by the POSIX subsystem.
SID: S-1-3-2
Name: Creator Owner Server
Description: This SID is not used in Windows 2000.
SID: S-1-3-3
Name: Creator Group Server
Description: This SID is not used in Windows 2000.
SID: S-1-3-4 Name: Owner Rights
Description: A group that represents the current owner of the object. When an ACE that carries this SID is applied to an object, the system ignores the implicit READ_CONTROL and WRITE_DAC permissions for the object owner.
SID: S-1-5-80-0
Name: All Services
Description: A group that includes all service processes configured on the system. Membership is controlled by the operating system.