Unhide the Administrator Account in Windows XP

In every installation of Windows XP, there is a built-in and defaut administrator user account named Administrator, which is equivalent to super user or root in Unix system. However, if you have set up another user account in Windows XP, the Administrator account will be hidden, cloaked and invisible in User Accounts or Computer Management.

To see the Administrator account, you have to boot the Windows in Safe Mode. However, you can modify the Windows’s registry so that the Administrator account will be shown at Windows XP’s Welcome screen for you to select, in the Control Panel’s User Accounts and in the local user lists in Computer Management.

  1. Launch Registry Editor.
  2. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\SpecialAccounts\UserList in the Registry Editor.
  3. Double-click the Administrator key in the right pane.
  4. If the Administrator key doesn’t exist, right-click on the above tree in the pane, choose New, DWORD Value, name it Administrator and press .
  5. Type 1 in the “Value data” box, and press .

Note: To launch User Accounts in Control Panel, you can go to Control Panel -> User Accounts, or click Start -> Run, and then type Control userpasswords and press Enter.

Once you unhide and reveal the Administrator account, you can change its picture or assign it a password or change the password. In addition, on the next boot to the Welcome screen, the Administrator account will be visible, along with all of the computer’s other user accounts.


This entry was posted on Sunday, May 7th, 2006 at 4:56 pm and is filed under Operating Systems. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

16 Responses to “Unhide the Administrator Account in Windows XP”

  1. kasunvp
    October 29th, 2009 12:02
    16

    Keeping the admin account unprotected is so foolish since it could provide access to the computer at any time. As in Linux I think it should be mandatory for the user to provide the main user password at installation.

  2. anthony
    August 1st, 2009 09:36
    15

    how to activate again my administrator account?im only using now the “guest user account”…all the files i needed are all in the administrator account..pls help me

  3. Can't log in as Administrator in Windows XP | Windows Ninja!
    November 13th, 2008 01:42
    14

    [...] Double Click “Administrator” then Type 1 in the “Value data” box, and press OK. Hope that helps! Source [...]

  4. dont ask me my name
    October 6th, 2008 08:38
    13

    it unhides it but it still wont show on the welcome screen

  5. Michael
    August 28th, 2008 16:08
    12

    Greetings; Regarding below…

    Double-click the Administrator key in the right pane. If the Administrator key doesn’t exist, right-click on the above tree in the pane, choose New, DWORD Value, name it Administrator and press . Type 1 in the “Value data” box, and press .

    The value in this entry needs to be in dec not hexdec to work. Your instruct though fantastic and appreceated did not reflect this. I played around a bit and yahooie, it worked wonderfuly. Thanks

  6. Drw
    March 13th, 2008 21:02
    11

    Worked like a charm. Thank you.

  7. James
    August 30th, 2007 03:53
    10

    hey i cant get the run button to show up and they diabled the computer from turning off

    help!

  8. Activate, Enable and Show Administrator Account in Vista Welcome Screen » My Digital Life
    August 10th, 2007 22:27
    9

    [...] built-in administrator account that is disabled and hidden by default, just like Windows XP (see how to show administrator account in XP). But unlike XP where any normal user account designated as Administrators group will have the same [...]

  9. Easily Login to Windows XP with No Password Administrator Account Backdoor Trick » My Digital Life
    May 27th, 2007 21:56
    8

    [...] Note: You can unhide or show the Administrator account on the Welcome screen. [...]

  10. Madman587587
    May 15th, 2007 09:49
    7

    ok roy gosoco are you running a server or is just a stand alone?

  11. roy gosoco
    May 7th, 2007 17:11
    6

    i have one big problem, i cant unhide the Run

  12. madman587587
    May 3rd, 2007 14:09
    5

    you can also turn off your computer and turn it back on agen, when it is stating up keep pressing F8, then when prompted select “Safe Mode”, you will see all of this crap that come up on the screen, thats fine… the next step when the start up screen is loaded, click on administrator, your now in… you have admin rights so goto C:\windows\system32\lusrmgr.msc then you can go right mouse click on a user and select reset password

  13. Eoin
    March 3rd, 2007 22:58
    4

    Great tip! Also note that the Registry Key need not be ‘Administrator’, it could occur that the default administrator account has been renamed, in which case the Key should be whatever the new name is, e.g. ‘Joe’ DWORD 0×1

  14. admin
    December 22nd, 2006 00:28
    3

    You need to be an administrator or an user with administrative rights.

  15. Zeferino Coutinho
    December 21st, 2006 23:52
    2

    But then… what happens if the systme does not let you add a DWord value… nor changing this area of the Regist File??? (that´s what happens in my WinXP PRO installation…)

    Zef Coutinho

  16. Mik Donovan
    November 29th, 2006 12:08
    1

    the admin account doesnt show up, so i tried hitting new>DWORD Value, and the following message appeared: Cannot create value: Error writing to the registry. What do i do now?

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