hidden administrator!

ive just done a security check on my windows professional sp2 based system, its alerted me that their are more than 2 users with administrator access, myself and my partner and a unknown user called 'administrator' so i tried control panel and account user to delete this mystery person, but the name wasnt available to be deleted, is this a risk to the pc security. if so how do i delete this user.


thks

morph

 

Yep, there is an 'Administrator' account on your system. No, you don't want to delete it. It is supposed to be there. You can access that account from safe mode. If you loaded XP Pro on the system yourself then it asked you to set the password for the Administrator account during setup. If XP Pro came preinstalled on your system then consult your manufacturers documnetation for the default password.

 

a lot of people change the name of the administrator account for security reasons. if you are paranoid about it, you can always do that.

 

I worked on a system last night that had a mystery Administrator account on it, no one knew why it was there! I asked the owner of the computer why and how it was installed, but no one had a clue! The computer owner had set themself up as an administrator and had set up a seperate user account. I deleted this mystery account and have had no problems on the system.

 

Every single XP system has an 'Administrator' account, it is supposed to be there. Normally a user will not see this account, unless they have booted the computer in 'Safe Mode'. It is this account that gives you full system access at the system level. This is the account from which you would attempt to fix the system in 'Safe Mode'. This is not a mystery 'Administrator' Account. If you have an Administrator account showing in your users list while booted in 'Normal Mode' that is not supposed to be there, then yes delete it.

 

I fully understand the function of the "Administrator" profile and the fact that it is hidden on most systems, and that wasn't a mystery! I only mentioned this to show that there was a ? profile there with Administrative privleges, assigned to an internet address that the owner and myself wasn't familiar with. Thanks for your clarification on this issue.

 

Ok, I gotcha, it was a ? User Account with Adiminstrator Permissons on his computer and you deleted that account.

 

i heard that renameing the admin acct can sometimes cause problems.

 

you might have to be in safe mode to see the account at the welcome screen but you dont have to be to log on with it.

at the welcome screen you can press alt+ctrl+del twice to get the log on box and you can type in administrator and the password for it and you should be able to log on.