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

Hi everyone.

As the title says.... Is it safe to delete the system managed account named 'DefaultAccount' or does the system need it?



Many thanks in advance. :)

This is an undocumented account but, like Administrator and Guest, is a built-in account. After much searching it seems that this this thread gets deeper than most (but not by much) into what its for. Oh, and by the way...

the short answer is that the GUI -- and probably some layers of code -- refuse to delete those built-in accounts.

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

...so apparently you can't delete DefaultAccount (or Administrator and Guest) even if you wanted to. (Probably for the best.)

Theories on what it is for (there being no documentation) fall into two main camps:

1) It's the template for all new user accounts. I tend to think this is wrong - surely that is what the hidden C:\users\Default folder is for.

2)...

It is the standard location where if the software does not specify elsewhere installs itself.

https://social.technet.microsoft.com...ew2014Feedback
...which sounds plausible.

Bree said:

1) It's the template for all new user accounts. I tend to think this is wrong - surely that is what the hidden C:\users\Default folder is for.

DefaultAccount is located in C:\Users\Default. There is no C:\Users\DefaultAccount folder.

Hi Bree. Thanks for taking the time to reply with what is some very helpful information. I'm very grateful. :)

Thanks for your input too Mystere. :)

Mystere said:

There is no C:\Users\DefaultAccount folder.

Huh? I didn't say there was, did I?

Bree said:

Huh? I didn't say there was, did I?

You said that you didn't believe that DefaultAccount was the template used creating new accounts, and said that C:\Users\Default was used for that, implying that you thought they were different accounts. I was pointing out that DefaultAccount *IS* C:\Users\Default.

Before I created this thread there was 2 accounts with the word 'Default' in the name.

I really should have posted before I deleted one of them. I obviously didn't delete the one which is called 'DefaultAccount' because as you can see on my screenshot 'DefaultAccount' is still there.

I wish I could remember what it was called.

So on new Windows 10 Enterprise installs...... for me anyway, it creates 5 user accounts. Administrator, 'Your current user name', 'Guest', 'DefaultAccount' and then the other 'default' one, which ever it was before I deleted it. Could it have been 'Default User'?

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.

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.

No.. it wasn't called 'Default.migrated. I'm not saying you are wrong.. just that that's not what the account that I deleted was called.

Hummm...