concept computer account in category active directory
This is an excerpt from Manning's book Learn Active Directory Management in a Month of Lunches.
Computers, which is empty when the domain is created but is the default location for the creation of computer accounts when a new machine is joined to the domain.
Why do you need computer accounts in Active Directory? Imagine an organization with thousands of users, each with their own desktop computer. This organization also has 2000 to 3000 servers. Now, you could manage the settings on all of those machines manually—good luck. A better and easier approach is to use Group Policy, which we’ll cover in chapters 8 and 9. Using Group Policy requires the machines to be in your Active Directory. Applications like Exchange require that the server is in the AD domain.
You already know a lot about managing computers because you learned how to manage users in chapter 2. Computer accounts in Active Directory are specialized variants of user accounts, which means you can apply a lot of your existing knowledge (re-read chapter 2 to refresh your memory if required). Everything else will be covered in this chapter.
In the examples in this chapter you’re going to create the accounts in the Computers container. This is the default location for computer accounts, but you can create an account in any OU.
Figure 6.1. Creating a computer account with ADAC. The only mandatory information is the computer name, which autopopulates the NetBIOS field as you enter it. This dialog also provides options for setting Protect from Accidental Deletion, the administrator(s) who will manage the computer, and the groups to which it’ll belong.
