Saving Your Domain Password with Credential Manager

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Added by Mike Danseglio June 15, 2015

Have you ever wanted to save a user name and password for a server connection? I’ve often wanted to do this on computers not joined to an Active Directory domain, but without joining the domain. In some cases a failed connection will prompt me to store a user name and password, but just as often I’m not prompted.

Happily there’s a feature in Windows 7 and Windows 8 that lets me create and store a user name and password for Windows to use whenever it attempts to connect to a target. The feature is Credential Manager, and this is how I add a new credential to its store.

Adding a Credential to the Credential Manager Store

To access Credential Manager, I simply open Control Panel and then single-click on Credential Manager. This launches the main dialog box as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. The Credential Manager main dialog box.

I already have one stored credential for connections to the MIKEDANI7SB computer. For demonstration purposes, I will create a new one for connections to the \\ToolDistro computer. To do that I click the Add a Windows credential link. Then I simply enter data into the Add a Windows Credential dialog box as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Creating a new stored credential.

Note that I can specify either a local username or an Active Directory domain username in the form of domain\user. When I click OK I can see the new stored credential in the list as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3. The new credential is ready to use.

Now whenever I attempt to connect to \\tooldistro Windows will first use this stored credential.

Enjoy!

Mike Danseglio -CISSP / MCSE / CEH
Interface Technical Training – Technical Director and Instructor