How do I Log in as Administrator in Windows Vista

[Bauer's]

How to login to Admin account in Windows Vista. I can see the default login screen with my account and a guest one. In Windows XP you can get that classic login screen by hitting Ctrl + Alt + Del. Then you just need to add your username and password and done. You can enter Windows XP. Is this feature removed in Windows Vista or there is some different way to enter the Administrator account. I remember I had not disabled that.

[Lucile]

For that you will need to tweak Windows Registry. The account is mostly hidden and you cannot access them by pressing those key combination. Long time ago I had did that by reading a article on web. I do not remember the exact tweak for that. But there is one more way you can go for. Login your system and right click on My Computer > Manage. In that click on Local Users and Groups. Now click on Users and look for Administrator. You have to right click on that and click on properties. The account is disabled by default. You have to remove the tick to make it enable. Second you have to go in Local Security Policy and then disable interactive logon. From here you have to enable Do not display last user name and disable do not require ctrl + alt +del. Now reboot your system and then try back.

[Judy B]

Here is a small registry tweak that can help you to get the hidden Administrator account. Run registry editor first and then look for HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon. Here you will need to create a new key. This will manage you to display the Administrator account. Name it as SpecialAccounts and hit enter. Now right click on newly created key and on the right side make a sub-key. This is the user list key. In the new user list key set the dword value to 1 and name it as Administrator. Restart your computer. There are some more settings that you need to ensure before making the final changes. Click on Start > Run and type compmgmt.msc. Now go under Local Users and Groups and then click on Users and double click on Administrator. The account is set disabled. You can enable that. You must do this before making changes to Windows Registry and do not forget to take a backup of the same.

[Andrzejewski]

There is a small tweak that will make the hidden administrator account visible on login screen. For that you have to pass a command net user administrator /active:yes in cmd. You need admin rights for the same. Log off and check. You can see the Administrator account with no password. You can modify the password if you want.

[SMichael]

There is quiet restriction in accessing Administrator account Vista. I had installed this and last time when I forgot my login details I was hitting Ctrl + Alt + Del a number of time on reboot. But that did not helped much. I do not understand why this account is restricted by Microsoft. They must have given a way to get your settings back if you lost your password. Somehow this will improve security but a bit annoying also.

[DesTiny!]

Though I agree that it is good for security, but if someone forgets it login details he will need to struggle hard for getting the admin logins. The only way them remain is to use a password reset disk or recover your system through different recovery program. Making Adminisrator account accessible keeps the pc a bit on risk. As a average techie guy who knows about this hidden account can access the system. There should be some option set on the recovering the login details. While in Windows XP many few knows to login through that account.

[Oshea]

That cmd trick worked for me. I was finding some solution on web to make the account enable for sometime only. So the command which is used to do that is net user administrator /active:yes. And to disable the admin account you have to type net user administrator /active:no. The only issue with using this thing is that the Administrator account is visible on the login screen and any one can access the system. It should be hidden or there must be way to access that by pressing some specific key combination. That will be much better.

[Jaap]

I made it as far as Control Panel>Administrative Tools>Computer Management and then system tools. When I get there (or anywhere else in computer management), there is nothing titled "local users and groups", "users", or "Administrator".

[karl1971]

I would offer one solution that worked for me. I have this nifty bootable dvd with "NT Password and Registry Editor" on it. I have cleared several passwords, and failing that, have always been able to enable the administrator account on a box that I am locked out of. So if your looking for a program that will work on XP, VISTA, and 7 research the aforementioned program.