Which component is primarily responsible for managing user rights in a network?

The component that is primarily responsible for managing user rights in a network is Active Directory Security Groups. These groups allow for the organization of users based on their roles, responsibilities, or departments within an organization. When users are added to a security group, they inherit specific permissions and rights that have been assigned to that group, thus simplifying the management of user permissions across the network.

Active Directory Security Groups streamline the process of applying user rights, as administrators can assign or revoke rights for many users at once by managing the group rather than individual accounts. This efficiency is crucial in larger networks where manual management of user rights would be tedious and error-prone.

While other options like Group Policies, user accounts, and permission settings are also involved in the overall management of user access and rights, they do not serve the primary role. Group Policies are more about enforcing configurations and policies across users and computers, user accounts are individual identities within the system, and permissions settings pertain to the access control defined on resources rather than the management framework of rights that security groups provide.