Enable or Disable Elevated Administrator account in Windows 10  

Try3 said:

Yes but their explanation misleads people such as

into thinking that an Admin account has complete access to everything.

Denis

Well, technically an administrator does have complete access to everything. They will of course have to change the owner and permissions of anything owned by "System" or "TrustedInstaller" first though.

Hi Shawn,

I am trying to set up a laptop with a new SSD and don't want to get this wrong, but my brain doesn't seem to be working today. I want to add a password to the built in admin account. Do I literally just type:

net user Administrator my chosen password /active:yes

as shown in Option 1, Step 4 to do this? And the password gets added at the same time as the account becomes active?

If not, can you point me in the right direction please.

SaggyMaggyPoo said:

Hi Shawn,

I am trying to set up a laptop with a new SSD and don't want to get this wrong, but my brain doesn't seem to be working today. I want to add a password to the built in admin account. Do I literally just type:

net user Administrator my chosen password /active:yes

as shown in Option 1, Step 4 to do this? And the password gets added at the same time as the account becomes active?

If not, can you point me in the right direction please.

Hello Maggi,

That would be correct on how to enable it with a password.

Maggy,

You are correct & Brink is correct.

However, in response to your query,

SaggyMaggyPoo said:

can you point me in the right direction please.

I suggest that the right direction is for you not to add a password to it and not to enable it.

Just let it sit there in its pristine condition ready to do its job [which is to self-enable at the Safe mode login screen if it detects that there are no other functioning Admin accounts on the computer].

If you want an Admin account ready for use then create one yourself. Personally, I created two - my ditty - Create two spare local, password-protected Admin accounts [post #25] - TenForums

Denis

Brink said:

Hello Maggi,

That would be correct on how to enable it with a password.

Thanks Shawn,

Then I don't need to type the password again, to disable or enable the account through Command Prompt. I just use the password if it's enabled and actually being accessed, yes?

Try3 said:

Maggy,

You are correct & Brink is correct.

However, in response to your query,

I suggest that the right direction is for you not to add a password to it and not to enable it.

Denis

Thanks for the suggestion, but I prefer to password protect it before disabling it again. Just how I am

SaggyMaggyPoo said:

Thanks Shawn,

Then I don't need to type the password again, to disable or enable the account through Command Prompt. I just use the password if it's enabled and actually being accessed, yes?

Correct. You would not want to have the password again in the command to disable or enable afterwards.

Brink said:

Correct. You would not want to have the password again in the command to disable or enable afterwards.

Hi Shawn,

I've unfortunately had a bit of a problem when I went to add a password to the Built-in Admin account, and am hoping you can help me to sort this out.

I added the password, turned slightly to check what to type next, and my mouse moved slightly. The result of which was to add extra characters to the password AND somehow press the return key. I never got round to typing active:yes

You can see the results in the attached picture, which also shows what happened when I then tried to activate / deactivate the account.

Help!!!!

Maggi

SaggyMaggyPoo said:

Hi Shawn,

I've unfortunately had a bit of a problem when I went to add a password to the Built-in Admin account, and am hoping you can help me to sort this out.

I added the password, turned slightly to check what to type next, and my mouse moved slightly. The result of which was to add extra characters to the password AND somehow press the return key. I never got round to typing active:yes

You can see the results in the attached picture, which also shows what happened when I then tried to activate / deactivate the account.

Help!!!!

Maggi

Hello Maggi,

No worries. You just missed part of the command to enable the built-in Administrator.

net user Administrator /active:yes

You did set the password to be that long string of characters though, so you would want to change that password later if wanted.

Change Account Password in Windows 10

Brink said:

Hello Maggi,

No worries. You just missed part of the command to enable the built-in Administrator.

net user Administrator /active:yes

You did set the password to be that long string of characters though, so you would want to change that password later if wanted.

Change Account Password in Windows 10

Thanks Shawn,

I was a bit stressed when I saw what had happened, and had just stopped shouting and swearing, so didn't realise I had missed that bit. I think I might leave that as the password though - as a reminder to be more careful next time!