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Ronnie Overby
Asked: 2010-07-22 05:26:20 +0800 CST

Orphaned Accounts on Windows Server 2003

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When editing the NTFS permissions for some folders on my Windows 2003 Server w/ SP2, I see many accounts like

Account unknown(s-1-5-21-545330648-264140627-1714.....)

This server isn't a member of an Active Directory domain, just a standalone server.

How can I get rid of these orphaned accounts that are showing up?

windows-server-2003 ntfs accounts orphans

1 Answers

  1. It's not the orphaned account you need to get rid of, it's the orphaned ACE's. You need to find out if the SID's that are listed are a user SID or one of the well known SID's. You can check it against this list:

    http://support.microsoft.com/kb/243330

    Also, you can download a utility called SidToName to see if it can be resolved to a user account or to one of the well known SID's. If it doesn't resolve to one of the well known SID's then it's for a user account that doesn't exist anymore (or isn't resolvable) and should be safe to remove from the ACL.

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