How to Enable the Administrator in Windows 11

This post shows students and new users how to enable Windows 11 built-in administrator accounts from the command line.

All Windows 11 computers come with a hidden built-in administrator account. This account is disabled by default. When you’resetting up a new computer, you’re asked to create a user account. The first account you create will be added to the administrator’s group and given administrator’s privileges.

These administrator accounts have full control of the files, directories, services, and other resources on the local computer. Practically, the administrator account has full control of everything on the system.

The administrator account you create has full control, but with UAC control protections. This is a way to provide some safeguards and protections before making mistakes. It makes you think twice with UAC confirmation prompts before actions are executed.

When you’re logged in with the built-in administrator account, you can run commands, and change the system’s settings, and you will not be prompted by UAC.

Using the built-in administrator account to manage your system can be dangerous. In most cases, you won’t get a chance to confirm that you want to execute certain tasks before executing, even if the commands would damage the system.

To enable the built-in administrator account, follow the steps below:

Enable the built-in administrator account from the command line

To enable the built-in administrator account from the command line prompt, open it as administrator as shown below in the image.

When the command prompt opens, run the commands below to enable the built-in administrator account in Windows 11.

net user Administrator /active:yes

After running the command, you should get a success message similar to the one below.

That will enable the account, however, you won’t be able to log in with it since you don’t know the password.

To enable the built-in administrator account and create a new password for it, run the commands below:

net user Administrator type_strong_passwore_here /active:yes

Please type_strong_password_here with the actual password you want to use with the administrator account.

With that, you should be able to log out from your current account and log in with the built-in administrator account that was originally disabled and hidden.

You should be able to log in as the built-in administrator after enabling the account.

Disable the built-in administrator account

If you wish to disable the built-in administrator account, simply run the commands below from an elevated command prompt window.

net user Administrator /active:no

Running the above command will disable the built-in administrator account and hide it from the log-in Windows.

Conclusion:

This post showed you how to enable the built-in administrator account that comes with Windows 11. If you find any error above, please use the comment form below to report.