Logging in to a hidden administrator account?

[mantis2009]

I need to login into a hidden administrator account on Windows 7.

There are a few complications.

1) The built-in administrator account is hidden, and as described below, I cannot elevate my privileges.

2) I created an administrator account, called "Secure," but it's completely invisible! By using an unsupported (and stupid) registry tweak, I have hidden the "Secure" account from view, such that even in UAC prompts, the "Secure" account isn't visible and I am unable to elevate my privileges. This means that I cannot get beyond any UAC prompt.

How can I either login or elevate to the hidden, built-in "Administrator" account or to the "Secure" administrator account that I created and then obscured through an unsupported registry hack?

Note that I cannot undo my changes to the registry that obscured the "Secure" account because I can't run regedit with the necessary privileges.

Note that due to my unsupported registry hacking, the "Secure" account does not appear on the login screen that displays at startup. I cannot login to the "Secure" account by selecting "Switch User."

I cannot find any way to access a Username/Password login prompt anywhere in Windows 7. I could login to the "Secure" account, if only I could access a username/password login prompt. I know the password for the "Secure" account -- I created it, after all!

I cannot run a command prompt with administrator privileges. I even booted into Safe Mode, but that does not give me the option to login to the "Secure" account, either!

Help, please!!

UPDATE: SOLVED! Check page 2 for details.

To get a prompt that includes a username and password field from within Windows 7 -- even in a Standard (non-Administrator) account follow these steps.

1. While holding down the Shift key, right-click the program you want to run.
2. Select "Run as a different user."
3. Type the username and password of the account.

Note: this will NOT work for disabled user accounts, like the built-in Administrator account. To use the built-in Administrator account, you first have to enable it.

This DOES work for hidden (but still enabled) user accounts. This will allow you to run a program as though you were a different user.

 

[mantis2009]

To be clear, here's what happens when I get a UAC prompt with only hidden administrator accounts.

The UAC prompt appears on the darkened Secure Desktop screen. I am asked to type an administrator password and then click Yes.

But there is no password field! There is no username field! There's nowhere for me to type my credentials! I am unable to click "Yes," and my only option is to click "No" to cancel the UAC elevation.

This has effectively locked me out of any adminstrator actions, even though I know the username and password of the administrator account that I created.

 

[zigzag3143]

Hi and OH boy
I have a couple of off the wall ideas.
Dows gpedit require elevated perms? It should I think
Trusted Installer Has elevated perms w/o admin group
the default hidden SU admin account. Is that the one you munged to get your account?
If not you might be able to elevate a cmd window and enable the default Admin.

Sorry I cant be of more use.

Ken

 

[sup3rsprt]

You could boot into safe mode and login to the real "Administrator" account.

 

[mantis2009]

Hi and OH boy
I have a couple of off the wall ideas.
Dows gpedit require elevated perms? It should I think
Trusted Installer Has elevated perms w/o admin group
the default hidden SU admin account. Is that the one you munged to get your account?
If not you might be able to elevate a cmd window and enable the default Admin.

Sorry I cant be of more use.

Ken

Thanks Ken --

gpedit doesn't work in my situation, I just tried it

I don't know how to try "Trusted Installer," how would I do this?

I'd love to get into the default hidden SU admin account. But how do I do that without elevation?

I cannot elevate a cmd window through the usual procedure (type "cmd," right click, run as admin... I get stopped at the UAC prompt!)

 

[mantis2009]

You could boot into safe mode and login to the real "Administrator" account.

How do I do this? I've booted into Safe Mode, but I'm not presented with any different login options, so I'm still stuck in my limited user account, without the ability to elevate.

 

[sup3rsprt]

I'd love to get into the default hidden SU admin account. But how do I do that without elevation?

by booting into safe mode.

can you explain to us the registry tweak you did that messed things up?

How do I do this? I've booted into Safe Mode, but I'm not presented with any different login options

What do you mean? Is it automatically logging into one of your other accounts? And if so, can you log out and log back in as "Administrator"?

 

[mantis2009]

I'd love to get into the default hidden SU admin account. But how do I do that without elevation?

by booting into safe mode.

can you explain to us the registry tweak you did that messed things up?

How do I do this? I've booted into Safe Mode, but I'm not presented with any different login options

What do you mean? Is it automatically logging into one of your other accounts? And if so, can you log out and log back in as "Administrator"?

The registry tweak -- which i strongly suggest no one apply -- is described here:

(EDIT: link deleted - i don't want to publicize these ****ers or improve their pagerank)

As I understand it, in Safe Mode, I can only log in to visible accounts, just as when I'm using Windows 7 without Safe Mode. In other words, I cannot log in to the "Administrator" account, and I can't log in to my obscured "Secure" account, even while in Safe Mode. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Thanks again --

 

[sup3rsprt]

You hid both the built-in "Administrator" account and the "Secure" account?

In Windows XP you could just hit Control+Alt+Delete twice at the login screen and it would bring up a login prompt. Please tell me this feature was not removed in Windows 7.

 

[mantis2009]

You hid both the built-in "Administrator" account and the "Secure" account?

In Windows XP you could just hit Control+Alt+Delete twice and it would bring up a login prompt. Please tell me this feature was not removed in Windows 7.

This feature was apparently removed in Windows 7 -- I cannot hit control+alt+delete to get a login prompt.

 

[mantis2009]

SOLVED

I was able to run regedit32.exe using my obscured "Secure" account. I then undid the registry tweak that got me stuck in the first place.

To get a prompt that includes a username and password field from within Windows 7 -- even in a Standard (non-Administrator) account follow these steps.

1. While holding down the Shift key, right-click the program you want to run.
2. Select "Run as a different user."
3. Type the username and password of the account.

Note: this does NOT work for disabled user accounts, like the built-in Administrator account.

This DOES work for hidden (but still enabled) user accounts.

Thanks everyone --

 

[zigzag3143]

Hi and OH boy
I have a couple of off the wall ideas.
Dows gpedit require elevated perms? It should I think
Trusted Installer Has elevated perms w/o admin group
the default hidden SU admin account. Is that the one you munged to get your account?
If not you might be able to elevate a cmd window and enable the default Admin.

Sorry I cant be of more use.

Ken

Thanks Ken --

gpedit doesn't work in my situation, I just tried it

I don't know how to try "Trusted Installer," how would I do this?

I'd love to get into the default hidden SU admin account. But how do I do that without elevation?

I cannot elevate a cmd window through the usual procedure (type "cmd," right click, run as admin... I get stopped at the UAC prompt!)

Mantis
Trusted installer you might be able to add yourself to it since it doesnt have an admin component

Yeah I did say these were out of left field. I have UAC off, and run as admin if forget.

Have you tried googlng the problem?

Let me ask arouund to see if someone has an idea

Ken

 

[sup3rsprt]

2. Select "Run as a different user."
3. Type the username and password of the account.

good 1

I was just going to suggest using the runas command which is essentially the same thing.

I found out by experimenting that the Administrator account doesn't show up on the login screen unless all my other Admin accounts are disabled.

Glad you got it sorted out

And by the way, instead of hiding user accounts in the registry, you can change LogonType to zero. This will give you a classic login prompt which requires you to type the username instead of clicking on an icon (the user accounts of the computer will not be shown).

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon]
"LogonType"=dword:0

EDIT - You must also Enable "Do not display last user name" either in group policy (local security options) or the registry itself.

It is completely safe.

 

[splattered]

I'm having this problem as well.. i have a client who purchased a PC for home, he wants a main user account with administrator rights(the initial profile during install), and then he wants his own second administrator account called "Admin" and wants to be able to hit ctrl alt dlt twice like you could in XP. Has it been determined that this is just absolutely not possible in Windows 7?

I messed around with the hide/unhide registry trick and it apparently works, but i can't get that login prompt to come up at logon if the profiles are invisible! grrr

 

[thejesse]

Has anyone found a way to resolve the issue splattered brings up and that got the original poster in trouble in the first place? In XP if you hid an account you could still access it by hitting ctrl/alt/delte at the startup screen. Doesn't seem like there is any way to do this with win7 that I have found. This is unfortunate and kind of undermines being able to even hide accounts from the startup screen in the first place.

 

[xxxxxxxxxxinc]

Hidden Administrator Account - No Admin Access

A few days ago, I bought a new Laptop with Windows 7 Ultimate installed. I set it all up with all the software I needed and then realized that the supplied "User" account was an administrator. Rather than demote the only administrator account that I could find at that time, I decided to create another "standard" user account to use on a daily basis since running always as administrator is "risky".

Once the standard user account was created, I HAD TO RE-INSTALL ALL OF THE STUPID SOFTWARE AGAIN AS THE STANDARD USER. What a pain! Isn't there a user copy option that I could use and then demote the new user???

Anyway, after setting up the new Standard user and rebooting I was presented with a new login screen which gave me a choice to login as the Administrative User or the new Standerd user account. Of course it was my intention to never login as administrator unless special circumstances warrented it. In addition, the standerd user was passworded and the administrator still had the default blank password so it seem unnecessarily revealing to display both accounts at login. Therefore I searched out the reg hack to "hide" the account as explained on the following website (among many):

http://www.sevenforums.com/system-security/101266-remove-administrator-icon-logon-screen.html

Adding the specialaccounts/userlist option worked fine to remove the admin account from the login screen, but (OOOOOOOOPPPPPPPS) it disabled any access to the machine as administrator - I suspect because the password was blank.

After hours of searching for a solution, this website feed was the closest to address this critical issue, but the proposed solution did not work for me because I could not get permissions to run regedt32.

The solution that did work for me was the following: Windows Change Password / Registry Editor / Boot CD, by Petter Nordahl-Hagen - Offline Windows Password & Registry Editor

Thanks Peter (and Linux) for saving the day....

---------- new question -----

How come 32/16/8 bit applications done run seamlessly on 64 bit windows 7? Didn't XP have a WOW or thunking solution that worked? Virtual XP Mode works,... but why should we have to resort to such a resource hog solution. In addition, why does every new version of windows obliterate the previous user interface???? How many millions must we spend on retraining users before Microsoft makes up their mind?