Master the Windows Server 2012 Challenge 2025 – Power Up Your IT Skills Now!

The built-in local groups on a server running Windows Server 2012 R2 receive their special capabilities through user rights. User rights are permissions that are assigned to users or groups that allow them to perform specific tasks on a computer or network. For instance, user rights can include the ability to log on locally, shut down the system, or take ownership of files.

Windows Server uses these user rights to determine what actions members of a group can carry out. Each built-in local group, such as Administrators or Power Users, comes with a predefined set of user rights that enable members of these groups to perform functions that a standard user might not be allowed to do.

While group memberships do influence what user rights a member has, the capabilities themselves derive from the specific user rights assigned to the group. Access control lists manage permissions to specific resources (like files and folders) rather than defining capabilities at a system level, and user roles typically refer to broader role-based access control models that can be complex and involve multiple systems or applications rather than standard local group capabilities on a Windows server environment. Thus, user rights are the foundational mechanism that grants specialized abilities to the local groups on Windows Server 2012 R2.