How to set up an account to monitor Windows 2012 domain controllers that is NOT a domain admin, including WMI.

SolarWinds Knowledge Base :: How to create a non-administrator user for SAM polling.

Please take note of the first paragraph... You really should be using an administrator-level service account for best results, word is that the KB steps sometimes end up conflicting with existing GPOs and you end up where you started. But no reason not to try it out

-ZackM

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Could you point to a specific place that says use an admin-level service account for best results?  I agree with your statement, but it would be nice to be able to offer some documentation to support that premise when management asks why.  I haven't been able to find it in the SAM admin guide.

I believe the following statement contained in the article referenced by Zack Mutchler is precisely what you are looking for. While it may be technically possible to create a least privilege user account for monitoring domain controllers via WMI or RPC, Microsoft has made the process so incredibly difficult that in most cases it requires the assistance of Microsoft support to get working properly.

Note: This article is for educational purposes only. SolarWinds Technical Support cannot assist with the creation of a least privileged Windows user account, nor the assignment of permissions to such a user account. For assistance configuring Microsoft Windows’ user account permissions, please refer to Microsoft Technical Support at:http://support.microsoft.com/contactus/).

For troubleshooting purposes, you may be asked by SolarWinds support to utilize a local or domain administrator account solely to eliminate possible permissions related issues as the cause of polling errors.