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Enable the (Hidden) Administrator Account on Windows 7 or Vista

Many people familiar with prior versions of Windows are curious what happened to the built-in Administrator account that was always created by default. Does this account still exist, and how can you access it?

The account is created in Windows 7 or Vista, but since it’s not enabled you can’t use it. If you are troubleshooting something that needs to run as administrator, you can enable it with a simple command.

Note: You really shouldn’t use this account for anything other than troubleshooting. In fact, you probably shouldn’t use it at all.

Enable Built-in Administrator Account

First you’ll need to open a command prompt in administrator mode by right-clicking and choosing “Run as administrator” (or use the Ctrl+Shift+Enter shortcut from the search box)

Now type the following command:

net user administrator /active:yes

You should see a message that the command completed successfully. Log out, and you’ll now see the Administrator account as a choice. (Note that the screenshots are from Vista, but this works on Windows 7)

You’ll note that there’s no password for this account, so if you want to leave it enabled you should change the password.

Disable Built-in Administrator Account

Make sure you are logged on as your regular user account, and then open an administrator mode command prompt as above. Type the following command:

net user administrator /active:no

The administrator account will now be disabled, and shouldn’t show up on the login screen anymore.

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By The Geek on 01/5/08

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Comments (340)

January 5, 2008 1:04 am

Chuma

What is the difference between the Administrator Account and the regular account? I guess what I’m trying to say is: what can administrator account do that regular account (with UAC turned off) can’t do?
January 5, 2008 10:59 am

Trebor

Ive always been told you have to capitalize *Administrator*. Anyway thats how Ive always done it. Ive been using this for months (here come the attacks from the UAC fanatics).
January 5, 2008 1:15 pm

Greg

Isn’t this a potential major flaw?

If someone leaves their guest account enabled and you log in, can you then activate the hidden Administrator and thus have admin rights?
January 5, 2008 4:11 pm

Dan

“Isn’t this a potential major flaw?”
No. If i remember then somebody has to set a password for the Administrator user when they first install Vista. On some OEM versions I think the Administrator password is automatically set to the password of the initial user. I do not think guest accounts can run UAC because they are not users that can run it.
January 7, 2008 8:35 am

Sean O'Hara

What is the difference between the Administrator Account and the regular account? I guess what I’m trying to say is: what can administrator account do that regular account (with UAC turned off) can’t do?

Probably nothing, but I’d rather get there through legitimate system options than registry hacks, which is the only method I’ve seen for disabling UAC.

On some OEM versions I think the Administrator password is automatically set to the password of the initial user.

So what happens with all the people who get a new Vista machine and don’t bother to set a logon password?
January 7, 2008 8:39 am

Chuma

Probably nothing, but I’d rather get there through legitimate system options than registry hacks, which is the only method I’ve seen for disabling UAC.
I disable UAC all the time without registry hacks. I thought there was an option in control panel somewhere…
January 8, 2008 1:16 pm

Phoenix

Wonderful
January 27, 2008 8:01 pm

shinto

I want to login to hidden administrator from welcome screen can u help me?
February 4, 2008 1:12 pm

andyp114

administrator password can be changed from command prompt as far as i know: type: net user administrator *
then it asks for the new password, a confirmation of the new password then says comand completed successfully.
February 6, 2008 11:23 am

Mary Schmokel

well, when I go to the command prompt, it defaults to “C:\USERS\[username]>” and I cannot use the command. The system response is :

“System error 5 has occurred”
“Access denied”

I do not have an administrator log on icon at start up and there is no file for it when I use “Start” “Explore”

did I delete the administrator user account or something?

How do I fix it?

Thanks!
February 7, 2008 6:42 pm

ladonna

I am getting the same error message as “Access denied”
February 9, 2008 4:08 pm

Paul

This link may help explain some of the security issues for above comments, though it’s for mapped drive access:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/947235

If you don’t really need to do this, I’d suggest that you don’t. Security is a tough thing to manage. I suspect that if you follow the registry edits at the link, then you’ll be able to change the Administrator’s password using “net user administrator *”

I also don’t have a user file structure for Administrator and it doesn’t show in the user list, but it’s there. From the command prompt just type “net user” and Enter. To make it show up during startup I think you can type “net user administrator /active:yes” and Enter.

Good luck.
February 13, 2008 2:35 am

Ray

The Administrator account is the one used by safe mode.
February 16, 2008 7:50 pm

Conway

A hidden administrator account? That’s just sick…
March 8, 2008 10:09 pm

Kirk M. Schafer

Several people asked about the difference between the built-in administrator account and the administrator created on Vista setup. Unless you are a very experienced user (more than 5 years in serious technical support) and require very specific access privileges, then the default account should be fine–you will know if you need the built-in administrator when, no matter what you do, you cannot perform an operation–and you will know immediately that this is the problem. Yes, there is a difference, and no, you shouldn’t normally have to worry about it.
March 8, 2008 10:47 pm

Kirk M. Schafer

To answer other comments, above:

User names are not case-sensitive for Windows logins, therefore you may type both Administrator and administrator. You can even type AdmINisTRatOR if you wish. In passwords, however, case does matter.

The built-in administrator has more privileges than the automatic administrator, regardless of UAC. In fact, it has a dangerous amount of privileges, and you should not use it–especially on a new OS with all-new security concerns–unless you know exactly why you need it.

Greg asked about the “guest” account and Dan answered about the administrator account. The guest account is disabled by default, and the (disabled) administrator is not available for the password to be set. Further, to acquire pseudo-administrative privileges sufficient to enable the built-in administrator, you’d have to be know a pseudo-administrator’s password. Therefore, unless one gives the guest account administrator privileges, assuming the security policies hold appropriately, this is not an issue.

I am currently typing this message on a (fixed) Vista Business machine while configuring two new Vista Premium machines. I cannot speak for some OEM’s setting the built-in password to be the same as the first-created user, since I have not yet run into this, but all three of these machines failed to do so — it was blank. I would be…disappointed if some OEM’s did this, by the way…because that would make these machines a little bit difficult to support.

UAC is indeed accessed through Control Panel. Start | Control Panel | User Accounts | User Accounts (yes, again) | Turn User Account Control on or off. You may, however, want to wait for the official release of SP1 in a few weeks; they’ve apparently addressed nuisance factors in UAC.

People who don’t set logon passwords find that they cannot, for example, create schedule tasks, use file sharing appropriately, and/or access their computer from a network. These aren’t necessarily bad things, but it’s a little non-intuitive if you don’t realize what’s happening.

For the person who wants to login to the hidden administrator…was the article unclear? Follow the instructions carefully and you should be fine. If you are trying to “break in” to the built-in administrator from an account that does not have administrative privileges…why don’t you have access to an appropriate account?

For those of you receiving “access denied” errors, you may not be starting the command prompt properly. Many times these problems can be resolved by taking a closer look at the instructions and trying again.

On previous versions of Windows, starting in Safe Mode was one of the easiest ways to reveal the built-in administrator, but on Vista, if the account is disabled you cannot use it to access safe mode. While this may lead some of you to conclude that “if my account ever gets corrupted I’d like that administrator around,” a better solution would be to create a second administrator and only login to it once (to setup the profile), then have the discipline to use it only when something bad happens to your main account. You can then enable the built-in if you absolutely need it, but you’ll probably get all the privileges you need from your backup account.

I believe the comment about setting the password at the prompt is accurate, and with that, I think that’s all of them. Good luck, folks.
March 16, 2008 7:44 am

tim

i did this and got a system 5 error has occurred access is denied , error message,
March 18, 2008 10:15 pm

Andrew

To resolve the “access denied, system 5 error”, simply run the command prompt as an administrator.

(Right-click Command Prompt, then click Run as Administrator.)
March 21, 2008 11:15 am

cari

thank you so much! this fixed all my problems! i was never able to install updates because i wasnt the administrator, and now my computer is running great! thanks again!
April 6, 2008 7:30 pm

James The G

I know about this super Administrator but i need the normal administrator password to get to the super Administrator. I think it might be because the only account i can access is guest but is there any solution please help.
April 13, 2008 12:45 am

Helen

Hi
I’ve got Windows Vista Business and the only account I have is an account which has guest privilege only – meaning I can’t use Run As Administrator, nor can I install anything … Everytime I try run as Administrator it wants a password – which I don’t have ….. HELP????

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Monday 20 August 2012

Admin #5 ....''Geek...''

Enable the (Hidden) Administrator Account on Windows 7 or Vista

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