About this question
What is the purpose of the "Authenticated Users" group in Windows? Under Linux it doesn't exist and I'm starting to think this is another idiosyncrasy or over-engineering of the Windows operating system.
Here is why:
Assume I want to know what rights has the user Mike on disk C:, I will type:
net user mike
and will be returned:
User name mike
Full Name
Comment
User's comment
Country code 000 (System Default)
Account active Yes
Account expires Never
Password last set 7/13/2013 7:55:45 AM
Password expires Never
Password changeable 7/13/2013 7:55:45 AM
Password required Yes
User may change password Yes
Workstations allowed All
Logon script
User profile
Home directory
Last logon 7/13/2013 7:53:58 AM
Logon hours allowedAll
Local Group Memberships *Users
Global Group memberships *None
I therefore assume the user mike belongs to group Users only, so I will check the security tab with a right click on the disk C and will see that users belonging to the "Users" group cannot modify the disk c but only read it.
Surprise surprise however, user mike will be able to write to C: !!! Why? because the command net cannot know it but mike also belongs to the Authenticated Users group which has right to write on C:!!
Can someone confirm the above story, comment whether it makes any sense or as I doubt it is a case of over-engineering and elaborate on the reasons behind this?
EDIT:
Notice the net command correctly shows groups if I create a new group and add user mike to it.
net localgroup testgroup /add
net localgroup testgroup mike
net user mike
returns
[*]
Local Group Memberships *Users *testgroup Global Group memberships *None
