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I work with AD data, and it occurred to me I don't actually know what 'Primary User' means.

(I don't work directly with AD, so it's possible I'm asking the wrong question or need to clarify - do let me know if that's the case).

Edit: it seems, as per Cheekaleak's answer, that I'm looking at an organisation-specific attribute. Flagging for close as this question will not be useful to others.

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    In reference to what? Where are you seeing "Primary User"?
    – joeqwerty
    Mar 2, 2012 at 17:54
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    Is someone using this terminology, or are you actually seeing this listed somewhere?
    – Ethabelle
    Mar 2, 2012 at 18:08
  • I found this while looking to see if there was a standard convention for assigning a primary user to a computer account, or if I had to extend the schema... so your question was useful.
    – GuitarPicker
    Jun 22, 2022 at 14:09

2 Answers 2

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There is no "Primary User" attribute for computer objects in Active Directory (by default). It is possible that your organization has extended the AD Schema to include this attribute for reference.

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It's not really a "Primary User". Or at least, I believe you're talking about how a new User object is required to have a Primary Group or the object is considered invalid.

By default, a new user's primary group will be 'Domain Users' and they will be automatically added. A user must have a primary group or the object is considered invalid as groups give users permissions, no group, the user has no permissions and is not a valid object on the domain essentially. Actually, you are prevented from removing a user from a group if the user has no other group.

Also, to change a users Primary Group ID you'd do the following;

1) Create a new group.

2) Add user to group.

3) Change users Primary Group ID to the new group.

4) Remove user from Domain Users group.

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  • While your answer is technically correct, I don't think it's what the OP was looking for...
    – Massimo
    Mar 2, 2012 at 18:03
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    Considering that I know of nothing that involves 'Primary User' outside of something like "The primary user of such and such account is ..." or in reference to the first account used to create a domain (Admin account) that exists in AD, it was the closest thing I could think of and that the OP might have been confused. shrug
    – Ethabelle
    Mar 2, 2012 at 18:04
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    +1. Good effort in trying to deduce what the OP was asking.
    – joeqwerty
    Mar 2, 2012 at 18:11

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