Is it safe to delete the system managed account named 'DefaultAccount'

Mystere said:

There is often an account called "Default.migrated", which can be safely deleted. This is your "old" default account prior to a migration which occurred during an upgrade.

That is a slightly misleading use of the word 'account'. The folders you refer to are more accurately called the user's Profile, not their Account. Accounts are the list of SIDs held in the registry under HKEY_USERS. The user's profile is found at %USERPROFILE%\NTUSER.DAT which is the Hive that is loaded into the registry as HKEY_CURRENT_USER at logon plus their Desktop, Start and other folders.

A user profile consists of the following elements:

• A registry hive. The registry hive is the file NTuser.dat. The hive is loaded by the system at user logon, and it is mapped to the HKEY_CURRENT_USER registry key. The user's registry hive maintains the user's registry-based preferences and configuration.
• A set of profile folders stored in the file system. User-profile files are stored in the Profiles directory, on a folder per-user basis. The user-profile folder is a container for applications and other system components to populate with sub-folders, and per-user data such as documents and configuration files. Windows Explorer uses the user-profile folders extensively for such items as the user's Desktop, Start menu and Documents folder.

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/lib...(v=vs.85).aspx

You can create an account, but until the user logs in there's no user profile to go with it. At first logon on a new profile folder is created for the user. The %USERPROFILE% folder (by default, created at C:\Users\<username>) is a copy of the default user profile found at C:\Users\Default, modified to personalise it for the specific user. That's why it takes so long and you see all those 'Hi, we're getting things ready...' messages the first time you log on.

It use to be so easy in XP to customise the Default Profile, just create an account, log in and rearrange it as you wish. Then log out, rename the profile folder as 'Default User' (renaming or deleting the original one first) and delete the account you used to make it. It's got progressively more complicated since then, by now requiring the use of the Sysprep tool, as @Kari explains...

[1.3) Do not click any buttons nor press Enter. Instead press CTRL + SHIFT + F3 (press and hold down both CTRL and SHIFT keys, press F3, release all keys)

1.4) Windows reboots now entering a so called Audit Mode using the built-in administrator account. When Windows Desktop will be shown you'll notice the System Preparation Tool dialog in the middle of your screen. Close it for now by pressing the Cancel button:

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/2...0-a.html#Part2

It's not clear what (if any) part the DefaultAccount plays in all this, particularly as...

Looking at the user info, it has a privilege level of USER_PRIV_GUEST, so it's like the Guest account, but without any legacy group memberships.

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r307...some-questions

Bree said:

That is a slightly misleading use of the word 'account'. The folders you refer to are more accurately called the user's Profile, not their Account.

Yes, I misspoke. Default.migrated is an old user profile that can typically be safely deleted.

Mystere said:

Default.migrated is an old user profile that can typically be safely deleted.

Yes, and confirmed by @Kari's link. But note the accompanying warning!.

...possible "ghost profile" folders should not be confused with the important default user profile folder Default (hidden folder) which should not be touched!

That just leaves us with the question that started this thread: What on earth is the purpose of the (undocumented) DefaultAccount ?

Kari said:

That seems to be a copy of the native built-in administrator profile...

That's not quite what I asked, I'm puzzled by purpose of the built in (but disabled) account DefaultAccount which (as far as I can see) doesn't have an associated profile.

Hi again.

Kari, mystere and Bree. I thank you all very much for taking the time to explain things in such detail for me. It's really appreciated.

I'm tinkering with quite a few systems at the moment and also looking forward to buying some new components to make a new desktop PC for myself.. hopefully next month.

All your valuable info will certainly go a long way to helping me understand and configure my new system exactly the way I want it to be.

I'll try and remember to report back and update you all on how things are progressing.

Many thanks once again.

Best wishes :)

I would have given extra reputation but it says I have to spread out some reputation elsewhere before giving you more.

I stumbled upon this thread today and noticed that it hadn't been closed. I obviously failed to remember to report back with an update as it's over 3 years since my last post. Unfortunately I cannot remember what I ended up doing so I can't post an update. I probably just let Windows do what it wanted.

I don't like leaving things unfinished but on this occasion I'll just have to mark it as solved anyway.