Enable the Hidden Windows 7 Admin Account

How to do it?

Many people familiar with prior versions of Windows and 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)

Now type the following command:

net user administrator /active:yes

You should see a message that the command completed successfully. Log out, and you’ll now see the Administrator account as a choice.

You’ll note that there’s no password for this account, so if you want to leave it enabled you should change the password.

Disable Built-in Administrator Account

Make sure you are logged on as your regular user account, and then open an administrator mode command prompt as above. Type the following command:

net user administrator /active:no

The administrator account will now be disabled, and shouldn't show up on the login screen anymore.

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Alternate Method (Using Registry)

If you want to enable the hidden administrator account from within Windows, you need 
access to an Administrator mode command prompt, but that won’t work if you don’t have 
access. This is a great way to quickly enable the hidden admin account so you can reset the 
password on your main account.

Enabling the Hidden Administrator Account

Now prepare your Windows 7/Vista DVD and restart the computer with the DVD in the DVD Drive. You’ll want to boot from the DVD so you may need to change the boot order in the BIOS. Depending on your system you will need to press Del, F2 or F12. 
After you've successfully booted from the DVD you’ll be presented with the language setting of the Windows setup. Click next.

In the next screen click “Repair your computer” from the bottom left corner of the window. Now the setup will search for Windows installations then display them, choose the Windows you want and click next. The setup may try to search for problems and may ask you if you want to restore your computer, just click no. Finally you’ll arrive at the System Recovery Options window that looks like this:

Click Command Prompt. This will open up a command prompt window where you’ll have to 
type regedit and press enter. From this point on you have to be extra careful as one mistake 
might ruin your Windows and render it unusable. In the left side of the Registry Editor 
click “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE” then in File menu click “Load Hive”.

In the file name field type the following and hit enter.

%windir%\system32\config\SAM

The hive needs a name, give it a name and remember it. For the purpose of this article we will name it“test” so replace it with the name you chose for the next steps. What you just did is load the SAM file into the Registry Editor so we can edit it. The SAM file is the Security Accounts Manager and contains encrypted information about the account names and passwords. Now that it’s loaded into the registry, navigate to “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\test\SAM\Domains\Account\Users”. Click on “000001F4” and from the right side pane double-click the “F” entry.

A new window will open allowing you to edit the “F” entry. The line that starts with “0038” is 

what you want to edit. The value next to “0038” is “11”, replace it with “10”. Be careful not to 

change anything else. Just double click the “11” and type “10” then hit the OK button. “11” is 

for disabled and “10” for enabled.

Back in the Registry Editor, from the left side click on the name you gave to the hive you 
loaded earlier and click “Unload Hive” from the File menu, restart the computer and you are 
done. The Administrator account is now enabled.