I just reinstalled my work computer to windows 10 pro, created a local account, connected to our vpn, joined our domain and logged in with my domain account, no problems so far.

Since the local account is automatically in admin group, i'd like to add my domain account there as well so that i can install work software and run things as admin without need to provide an admin password every time i do so.

But when i try to add the domain account to admins, it doesn't allow me to add someone from other domain.

When i go to my domain account and try it there, it finds my domain account, but tells me that i don't have persmission to do that. And if i run control panel as admin with my local account, them i'm back where i started.

Why can't i add a domain account into my admin group from my local account? I did that in Win 7, Win 8 and Win 8.1 with no problems, before. How do you add a domain admin to your domain?

Best Answer


To add an account as a member of the administrators group you need to be a local administrator already and you need to have rights to read the active directory information. Normal users can do this so what you want to do should be possible

  1. log on as local admin
  2. connect on the VPN
  3. open Start | Computer Management | Local Users and Groups (or run lusrmgr.msc )
  4. double-click on the 'Administrators' group
  5. click the 'Add...' button

At this point, because you are on the VPN and the machine is a member of the domain, you should be able to click on the 'Locations...' button and select the domain as the location of the user list. At some point an authentication dialogue should pop up and you'll need to enter your usual domain credentials

Screenshot of process