Secure The Ultimate Vista Administrator Account

The built-in Windows Vista Administrator account is an ultimate super user account!

Unlike other user-defined accounts in the Administrator group, this is the only one that immune to Vista UAC security control.

By default, the built-in account is turned off on every installation, regardless of the Vista editions. Of course, it’s possible (in fact, it’s fairly easy) to turn on or enable it whenever necessary.

However, if you decides to re-activate it, do remember set a strong password to protect the ultimate Vista account – the default Vista Administrator account password is blank (i.e. without password or empty)!

Personally, I prefer the user-created account with Administrative privilege rather than the Vista built-in Administrator account. One of the reasons is that the built-in Administrator account will run all Windows processes with administrative privilege in non-protected mode.

That’s to say, the Vista UAC and IE7 protected mode will be disabled altogether! (If not due to better Windows security features, what’s purpose of switching Windows XP to Windows Vista?)

How to activate the built-in Vista administrator Account from Command Prompt?

(Note: These tricks are tested successfully in Windows Vista Ultimate edition)

Open an elevated Command Prompt window and execute the net user command

net user Administrator /active

(see also How to enable Vista Administrator account with the control userpasswords2 command?

How to set Vista Administrator account password from Command Prompt?

Open an elevated Command Prompt window and execute the net user command