How to backup Windows 2003 Server users and passwords?

Question

Is it possible to backup the users (with passwords) on Windows 2003 Server?

Answer 1

A system state backup will include the account databases in addition to other critical system files.

Passwords are normally only stored using a one-way hash. There is no way to reverse the hash.

Answer 2

Users and Passwords on windows server are stored in active directory (usually). There are good things and bad things about using Active Directory, but one of the good ones is that it supports replication. So, you can setup a second windows server, and replicate all the data to it automatically. If the first server goes down, the second can take over. But this is improved resilience, not strictly a backup.

For a backup, the standard windows backup tools should help. Veritas Backup Exec and similar third-party tools can take a smart backup of Active Directory stuff. If you want a much more DIY-type solution, you can use command line tools to dump active directory's data in LDIF format. You'll probably lose some fine details that way, but it should include basics like names and (hashed) passwords.

Answer 3

I believe that, if you start a system state backup, and then cancel it after the state changes to "Backing up files from your computer…" then you can just backup the SAM file from %systemroot%\Repair.

If that does not work, then the only way I know to do what you want is to boot to another operating system and backup %systemroot%\Config\SAM.

HTH,

Glenn