Using Windows Domain User Groups

What is a Windows domain?

A Windows domain is a group of computers running Microsoft Windows that share a central directory database. This central database, managed as part of an Active Directory Federation Services infrastructure, contains the user accounts and security information for the resources in that domain. Each person who uses computers within a domain receives their own unique account, or user name. This account can then be assigned access to resources within the domain.

What is a user group?

A group is a collection of user accounts that can be managed as a single unit. Users that belong to a particular group are referred to as group members. Using groups can simplify administration by assigning a common set of permissions and rights to many accounts at once, rather than assigning permissions and rights to each account individually.

Using Windows user groups

Using PcVue's User Accounts configuration you allocate profiles to one or more Windows user groups.

When a user logs on to PcVue, Windows authentication is called. If the user name and password are valid, the name of the User Group is returned, which logs the user on and activates the allocated profile. If the user name and password are not valid as Windows credentials, PcVue checks if they match a valid account int the built-in directory.

If enabled in the User Accounts section of the General Operation Configuration, the Windows user's Full Name and Description are available as Display Name and Description properties respectively.

Advantages of using Windows user groups

  • Centralized management of users for multi-station applications.
  • Uses the secure Windows environment to manage users.
  • Windows Domain administrators can add, remove or modify user accounts without changing the configuration of PcVue.

When using Active Directory integration, Windows Domain users can use the following syntaxes in the login dialog box:

  • Account name: UserName

  • Down-Level Logon Name: DomainName\UserName where DomainName is the NetBIOS domain name

  • User Principal Name (UPN): UserName@Domain.local where Domain.local is the domain name

When using the down-level logon name or user principal name, the setting Domain name is not considered.