Managing Fax Server User Accounts and Groups

Applies To: Windows Server 2008

User accounts

Windows ServerĀ 2008 provides fax-related user accounts for more privacy and better organization and management of faxes. Users can use accounts for accessing different types of fax services such as the local fax modem and a fax server.

Your users must have an account to be able to access a fax server running Windows ServerĀ 2008. You can configure a fax server so that when a user uses Windows Fax and Scan for the first time to send a fax, an account is automatically created. If you use this option, as soon as a user connects to the fax server, the account is automatically created.

If you want to have a tighter control on the users connecting to the fax server, you can disable this setting, in which case you must manually create the user accounts for all the users who need to access the fax server. In such a setting, if a user tries to connect to the server without having an account already, the connection will be denied.

To automatically create a user account automatically for a fax server

  1. Open Fax Service Manager.

  2. In the left pane, right-click Fax, and then click Properties.

  3. On the Accounts tab, select the Auto-create accounts on connection check box so that an Administrator does not need to explicitly create each user account.

  4. Then, under Reassign Setting, do one of the following:

    • Click On if you want messages that are received to be reassigned to individual accounts by only certain users.

    • Click Off if you want all accounts to be able to access the fax server inbox to view incoming messages.

You can also add or delete user accounts directly.

To add a user account directly for a fax server

  1. Open Fax Service Manager.

  2. In the left pane, double-click Fax, and then click Accounts.

  3. In the right pane, view the existing accounts and determine which new accounts you want to add.

  4. To add a new account, right-click Accounts, click New, and then click Account.

  5. In Create New Account, provide a user name and domain, and then click OK.

  6. To later delete an account, right-click the account, and then click Delete.

User groups

There are two user groups that you can use to provide access to a fax server: Fax Users and Routing Assistants. Members of the Fax Users group can use your fax server to send and receive faxes. Members of the Routing Assistants group can view the inbox of the fax server to route faxes to the intended recipient. You can specify to allow every fax user to access to the inbox on the fax server, which minimizes management. Or you can designate that only certain users have access to the inbox.

You can configure and add members to these groups when you install the Fax Server role, or you can do this task later using Local Users and Computers.

To add users to user groups to control access to a fax server

  1. Click Start, and then click Server Manager.

  2. In the left pane, double-click Configuration, double-click Local Users and Groups, and then click Groups.

  3. To enable users to send and receive faxes using the fax server, in the right pane, double-click Fax Users, click Add, and then provide user account information.

  4. To allow access to the fax server inbox, in the right pane, double-click Routing Assistants, click Add, and then user provide user account information.

Additional considerations

To configure fax components, you must be a member of the Administrators group or you must have been delegated the appropriate authority. As a security best practice, consider using Run as to perform this procedure.

Additional references