Disabling Administrator Account

[isaiah40]

Hello,
I am going to try and explain this as best as I can.
I am trying to disable the administrator account. I have tried everything
and nothing is working. Each time I turn on my computer it comes up with a login for the standard account and the administrator's account. I just want have only one login option. How in the world do I do that? PLEASE HELP!

Thanks.

 

[ionbasa]

well login to your standard acount and run an elevated commpand prompt


To disable the Windows 7 administrator account type in and then hit enter:
net user administrator /active:no

 

[theog]

You must have one administrator account.

 

[ionbasa]

I belive he is trying to say that he activated the built in admin acount, and now cant "disable it". The standard acount will always ba an admin account(the one you first set up).

 

[theog]

Standard user account is not a administrator account.

 

[alphanumeric]

Standard user account is not a administrator account.

The default account created when I installed windows 7 on my PC is? I have enabled the built in administrator account and they both are listed as Administrator on the manage accounts page? I'm not 100% sure what you meant by that statement so maybe I misunderstood what you meant to say.

 

[theog]

The standard acount will always ba an admin account(the one you first set up).

Standard user account is not a administrator account.

 

[CarlTR6]

Standard user account is not a administrator account.

The default account created when I installed windows 7 on my PC is? I have enabled the built in administrator account and they both are listed as Administrator on the manage accounts page? I'm not 100% sure what you meant by that statement so maybe I misunderstood what you meant to say.

The default account created when you installed Windows is an administrator account, albeit a limited admin account. You can create a standard user account. You will always need to have one admin account.

Check this tutorial on the built in administrator account: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/507-built-administrator-account-enable-disable.html

 

[ionbasa]

Maybe I miss-interpreted what I wrote. I probably should have said "The default acount you create during an Windows 7 install has administrator privleges" instead of:

The standard acount will always ba an admin account(the one you first set up).

 

[MacGyvr]

Never disable the account named "Administrator"...this is a bad, bad, bad idea. Give it a ridiculously difficult password, but don't disable it. Trust me, you'll need it one day and regret it.

 

[alphanumeric]

Never disable the account named "Administrator"...this is a bad, bad, bad idea. Give it a ridiculously difficult password, but don't disable it. Trust me, you'll need it one day and regret it.

The thing is, it's disabled by default in windows 7. I tweak my system and sometimes go where no one has gone before.:shock: I may need that account to bail myself out afterwards, so I enable it and password protect it.

 

[alphanumeric]

OK here is a tweak I use on windows XP to "show" the admin on the welcome screen.
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\SpecialAccounts\UserList]
"Administrator"=dword:00000001

If you change the dword to 00000000 the admin account will not show up on your welcome screen. I just tried it on my W7 system and I could remove "hide" and put it back by editing that key. Your milage may vary and do so at your own risk.

EDIT: While this tweak doesn't disable the admin account, it just hides it from the welcome screen, once you hid it I'm not sure how you can ever logon to it again. Switch Users just brings up the welcome screen with no admin account to click. In XP you could hit ctrl > alt > del twice and then type in administrator, doesn't seem to work for windows 7?

 

[MacGyvr]

Never disable the account named "Administrator"...this is a bad, bad, bad idea. Give it a ridiculously difficult password, but don't disable it. Trust me, you'll need it one day and regret it.

The thing is, it's disabled by default in windows 7. I tweak my system and sometimes go where no one has gone before.:shock: I may need that account to bail myself out afterwards, so I enable it and password protect it.

That's very odd. I've installed Windows 7 at least 30 times on various machines and it has never had the Administrator account disabled. Just checked it on this machine, and it's enabled, and I didn't do anything to enable it.

 

[theog]

Never disable the account named "Administrator"...this is a bad, bad, bad idea. Give it a ridiculously difficult password, but don't disable it. Trust me, you'll need it one day and regret it.

The thing is, it's disabled by default in windows 7. I tweak my system and sometimes go where no one has gone before.:shock: I may need that account to bail myself out afterwards, so I enable it and password protect it.

That's very odd. I've installed Windows 7 at least 30 times on various machines and it has never had the Administrator account disabled. Just checked it on this machine, and it's enabled, and I didn't do anything to enable it.

Default Administrator account, or hidden Administrator account?

 

[CarlTR6]

I have the same question as Theog. I think we are confusing the administrator acconts.

The administrator account created when you install Windows is a limited administrator accounts - not the wide open admin account as in XP. However, you can do anything with your system through this account if you know how. It will more than suffice for most administrative tasks.

There is also a built in, hidden administrator account. This one is more wide open and closer to the admin account account in XP. To access this account, you must unhide it. Most of us do not really need this account and for the average user, I recommend that it be left hidden. Most certainly if you choose to unhide, password protect it.

For security, MS and security gurus recommend that you create a standard user account in addition to the admin account that is created when you install Windows and use this standard user account for your daily computer activities. I must confess that I do not always follow this. I do not recommend that one use the hidden administrator account for routine, daily computer use.

 

[alphanumeric]

When I personally refer to "The Administrator" account I am referring to the built in account that has the user name "Administrator" and is an administrator account in that it has administrator privileges. Not the user account created when you install windows, that is also an administrator account and has administrator listed in the account type or description. It's my understanding that the built in Administrator account is disabled by default and has to be enabled to be used and have the password set. It didn't show up here until I enabled it.

 

[CarlTR6]

When I personally refer to "The Administrator" account I am referring to the built in account that has the user name "Administrator" and is an administrator account in that it has administrator privileges. Not the user account created when you install windows, that is also an administrator account and has administrator listed in the account type or description. It's my understanding that the built in Administrator account is disabled by default and has to be enabled to be used and have the password set. It didn't show up here until I enabled it.
View attachment 87364

Yes, you are correct. We usually refer to it as the "hidden administrator account" to avoid confusing it with the default administrator account generated upon installing Windows.

The hidden administrator account is the one that I recommend that most users leave hidden for security reasons. It should not be used for day to day, routine computer use.

 

[alphanumeric]

Some of the confusion comes from the fact that the default for windows 7 is to make any user accounts you create a member of the "administrators" group. Thus they shown Administrator as the account "type". The systems Administrator "account" is a member of the administrators "group". Disabling one (the account) doesn't disable the other (the group). I have the hidden account enabled so I can use it if my main user account gets corrupted and I can't log in to it. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong but if you can't log in, you can't enable the admin account, and if it's not enabled you can't log into it to try and fix the other user account.

 

[theog]

What confusion?

 

[alphanumeric]

What confusion?

View attachment 87412

I think some people in this thread may be confusing the administrator "account type" with the actual user account named Administrator. In your screen shot you are selecting the type of "user account" you want that user to be, admin or standard user. That has nothing to do with enabling or disabling the usually hidden account named "Administrator". If you look at my screen shoot you will see {Kerry > Administrator > Password protected}, and {Administrator > Administrator > Password protected}. The second one, I believe, is what the OP doesn't want to see on the welcome screen. In my case it's only there because I ran "net user administrator /active:yes".