How to allow a non administrator domain user account to enable/disable their network adapter

group-policywindows 7windows-server-2008-r2

I have many users in my company domain (mycompany.org) who are using Dell laptops running Windows 7 Professional.

I am using Windows Server 2008 R2 as a domain controller. On priority, my users need to enable / disable their network adapter (it's a requirements of the organization). Currently, the system denies them this privilege without an administrator password. A prompt is displayed every time to request credentials when trying to do this.

Is there a way to give them permission to enable / disable their network adapter requiring an administrator password?

Steps that I have already taken are:

  1. My domain user (student13) running Windows 7 Professional on a laptop was added to the user group Network Configuration Operator on the Domain controller.

  2. On the domain controller, a GPO with Ability to enable/disable a LAN Connection set to Enable.

  3. The created GPO above was linked to an OU that contains the users who needs to enable / disable their network adapter.

I believe what I need to do is make sure that my users are part of the Network Configuration Operators user group. This group enables the privileges to be delegated to the users so that they can manage the configuration of networking features.

I have tried all the possible solutions. But still, my users are not able to enable / disable their network adapter. A screen to provide credentials appears every time.

Best Answer

Adding them to the Network Configuration Operators user group on their workstation. i.e. local user group (and not on the server) should help.

You can do this:

  1. via the UI using the Computer Management snap-in.
  2. via the following command (remember to run the command prompt windows as administrator): net localgroup "Network Configuration Operators" /add <user name or user group name>

You may want to make sure any group policies that you applied related to this are removed. You can view group policies applied to a workstation using the rsop.msc snap-in or using the command prompt:

To find all the policies that are applied to your user account, you would use the following command:

gpresult /Scope User /v

If you are looking for all policies applied to your Computer, all you need to do is change the scope:

gpresult /Scope Computer /v
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