How to add a group with long name to local group from command prompt or batch file?

Question

When trying to add a global group with a name longer than 20 characters using net.exe I get an error saying that the syntax is incorrect, as follows:

C:\>NET.EXE localgroup MyRemoteUsers "really-long-group-name-here" /ADD

The syntax of this command is:

NET LOCALGROUP [groupname [/COMMENT:"text"]] [/DOMAIN]
groupname {/ADD [/COMMENT:"text"] | /DELETE}  [/DOMAIN]
groupname name [...] {/ADD | /DELETE} [/DOMAIN]

This problem is documented by Microsoft here. I need this to work inside a standard .cmd batch file. Is there a simple workaround?

Answer 1

You can use powershell in a batch file like this:

powershell -command "& { ([adsi]'WinNT://./your-local-group,group').Add('WinNT://YOURDOMAIN/your-really-long-global-group-name,group'); }"

One of the tricks above is to use double quotes for entire command while using single quotes within the commands. This allows you to run the statement from cmd.exe or inside a .bat/.cmd file.