How do I activate the administrator account?

[#1]

Question

How do I activate the administrator account?

---

Answer

As the item Local groups and users is missing in the computer management in the Windows Home versions, the command line or Powershell must be used for this.

The procedure is the same in all current Windows versions.

Type cmd in the search field of the start menu and right-click on the search result to run the Run as administrator command prompt.

The administrator account is now active, but not protected with a password!

You will also find a new entry in the start menu under your user profile, which you can use to open the admin account immediately.

Your currently loaded account remains open in the background.

A prompt to enter a password can be opened with the command net user administrator *.
Note: Windows does not display a visual confirmation message when you enter the characters. Simply type in the password and confirm with Enter.

The account is deactivated using the activation command above, simply replace yes with no.

It should be noted that the administrator account does not have more rights than the other accounts with administrator rights, but for this account the User Access Control (UAC) does not apply to this account. This means that all programmes started from this account run with administrator rights. 

---

The information in this article refers to:

Devices with current Windows operating systems

Article in other languages:

• Deutsch

Review Date: 2024-11-13