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

Bhanu Chawla

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)

Run Command Prompt as Administrator

Now type the following command:

net user administrator /active:yes

The Command Complete Successfully

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 too)

Administrator Account