Unlocking Super Secret Administrator Account In Windows Vista

Deep inside Windows, there’s a secret Administrator account, and it’s different from the normal administrator account you most likely have set up on your PC.On Vista, the difference is more than the name: the Administrator account is not subject to User Account Control. So the Administrator can make any changes to the system and will see no UAC prompts.

For this reason, you may want to unlock the Administrator account, and use it only for those times when you want to make a series of system changes and don’t want to be bothered by UAC. True, you could instead simply disable UAC on your system, but it’s a pain to do this, and you may forget to turn it back on.

Turning on the Administrator account is straightforward.

You can unhide or turn on the Administrator account using the steps below:

1. Type cmd in the Search field on the Start menu. Right click the command prompt icon at the top of the Start menu and click Run as administrator.
2. Type ‘Net user administrator /active:yes’.

Once you complete these steps, the Administrator account will appear on the Welcome screen. To disable once again hide the account, repeat step 1 described above and type ‘Net user administrator /active:no’.

Category: Tips, Vista