Windows – Administrator account in Windows Vista

• Create a new user and add it to the administrator group
• Open Regedit.exe and navigate to:

Local Machine:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\SpecialAccounts

Create a new key 'UserList', under it create a REG_DWORD value with the name of your new user and a value of 0

or use Powershell:

New-Item -Path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\SpecialAccounts"
New-Item -Path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\SpecialAccounts\UserList"
New-ItemProperty -path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\SpecialAccounts\UserList" -name myNewUserName -value "0" -propertyType DWord

You may have to reboot, but the new user should not show up on the logon screen. I've never used any home editions, so I don't know how they behave.

I don't recommend to activate the disabled administrator account, there is no UAC for it.

In order to enable the built-in Administrator account, you must be logged in as an administrative user. First you must reset your account's password by doing one of the following:

1. Log into a different administrative user (if available) and change your password.

2. Use a Windows Password Reset Disk (if available).

3. Use a boot tool like Offline Windows Password & Registry Editor (which is included in Hiren's Boot CD) to reset your account's password.

The latter should only be done on a computer that you legally own.

Once you have access to an administrative account with the above method, you can enable the default Administrator account by doing one of the following:

1. Right-click My Computer, then click Manage.
2. Expand Local Users & Groups, then select Users
3. Right click the Administrator user and click Properties.
4. Enable the account and click Okay.

Alternative method:

1. Click Start, Run and type Regedit.exe Navigate to the following key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows NT \ CurrentVersion \ Winlogon \ SpecialAccounts \ UserList

2. Use the File, Export option to backup the key

3. Create a new DWORD Value named Administrator
4. Double-click Administrator, and set 1 as its data
5. Exit the Registry Editor.

In Windows XP Home Edition, you can unhide the Administrator account, but you cannot log into via normal login mode.