How to turn on the local administrator account on a remote computer during an RIS installation in Windows Server 2003

You can use Remote Installation Services (RIS) to install Microsoft Windows Server 2003 on remote computers. In some instances, you may want to turn on the local administrator account on the remote computer during the installation.

By default, a setting in the Ristndrd.sif file turns off the local administrator account on remote computers during an RIS installation. After the remote computer successfully joins the domain, and after the Domain Admins group is added to the Administrators group, the local administrator account on the remote computer is turned on. To turn off the default behavior and turn on the local administrator account when you remotely set up a new Windows Server 2003-based computer, delete the DisableAdminAccountOnDomainJoin line from the Ristndrd.sif file. To do this, follow these steps:

1.	Open the Ristndrd.sif file by using Notepad. The Ristndrd.sif file is located in the \RemoteInstall\Setup\English\Images\RIS\I386\Templates folder.
2.	Delete the following line from the "[data]" section: DisableAdminAccountOnDomainJoin = 1

The DisableAdminAccountOnDomainJoin setting was introduced in Microsoft Windows 2000 Service Pack 3 (SP3) and in Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 1 (SP1).

For additional information about how to use Remote Installation Services with Microsoft Windows Server 2003, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: