Learn how to logon Windows 7 as Administrator.
Enable the Administrator Account
- Open the command prompt with elevated privileges by clicking the Start orb, All Programs, Accessories, right-click Command Prompt and then select Run as administrator.
- Type net user administrator /active:yes and then press Enter.
- Restart or log off your computer and log in as Administrator.
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Explore other guides about: Guides • System Management and Maintenance • User Accounts.
Perfect help – thanks
thanks for the guide…simple and short
I just installed Windows 7 ultimate and wanted to login as admin to make changes to System32 folder. Followed your instructions… works like charm…
Thanks for your advice…terrific :)
work great!
Thank you!
the help was just great! otherwise i was going from one advise to another without any results
Thanks for the tip on how to enable the Administrator login in Win7. It was a perfect help.
I tried doing this but I keep getting “system error 5 has occured” Access is denied.
all u have to do to fix this is go to
control panel>user controls and family safety>user accounts> change user account control settings
then turn OAC off
I tried going to control panel and changing the OAC setting but it will not let me in without administrator permission. I am here in the Mountains of Central America and am going insane with this problem i can’t even sign into windows web site
Wormsauce: You probably ran as an account with in the Administrators group, but not as _THE_ administrator. At least that’s what I did initially and I saw the same error. Do the “Run as administrator” as listed on this page and it works like a charm.
KO
Thanks, I could have easily done this in XP but not windows 7. Still Windows 7 is better than Vista.
WINDOWS & is the best of all OS
Worked great. I’m curious. What is the difference between the command line method and using the computer Management console to disable/enable the Administrator account?
Nothing.
Thanks for reminding me about that. I completely overlooked it. I’m adding it to this guide.
I have an issue where i cant run anything as an elevated admin the run as option is missing when i right click on CMD .. how did i confiure this away and how do i restore this back .. currenlty running win 7 ult build RTM
How do you run this script through CMD with Task Scheduler at system start up before login.
I’ve been able to set up the schedule, triggers, and rights I want, I just don’t know how to get cmd.exe to run “NET USER ADMINISTRATOR /ACTIVE:YES” when it’s activated.
Rob
Update: I was able to get the script to run by making .bat file and simply having the Task Scheduler run the .bat at startup, but the command didn’t seem to run before login. I had to login in and then switch users to see the Admin account. Anyway to remedy this?
You only have to run the command one time to activate the Administrator account. Once the Administrator account is active you log in to it just like any other account. You don’t have to run the net user command every time you want to log in with the Administrator account.
Sorry I guess I didn’t explain.
Yes, you only have to set it up once, that is assuming you want to leave it running all the time. But if you want to shut it down, and only open the netadmin on certain events, such as system start up on a particular date, then you would have to write it into the task scheduler.
This was for our son’s new computer we bought him for his upcoming birthday. He’s a smart and computer savy teenager and we (well me more then the better half) would like to keep a back door open incase he bypasses parental controls and tries to lock us out. In the end it seems nearly impossible to control a computer if they physically at the computer, but this is what I was thinking when I saw this page.
We could set up this netadmin to run in the task scheduler on system startup, but limit it’s startup and expiration to a single day on a date we decide. Either something far away like Jan, 1st, 2050, or a previous day, like earlier this year, that way even if we are locked out of admin control we could reset the bios time back to the previous date, or to Jan 1st, 2050 and the netadmin would be activated. Once were done checking up on what our son was doing we could simply reset the bios, and have the Task Scheduler run the disable netadmin command on every other possible date other then the single day we allowed the original command to load.
Well, I’ve been trying that out, and it works pretty well with a few issues. First I have to log into an account and switch back to users to see the admin account appear. It seems that they script is running, but login only grabs user info once and isn’t instantly updating with the new avaiable account. Hence why I have to log in and come back out to the login ui. It doesn’t need to be an admin account and even the guest account works to reset the login ui.
Next I’ve been able to set up a few netadmin task schedules to remove the netadmin. I’ve tried event triggers of different dates, when a user locks the workstation, and I was hoping for when the system shutdown, but I didn’t understand system id’s to figure out how to make that last one work. Locking a user account seems to be the most reliable as having the date change causes a similiar issue when start up happens, where the netadmin account is still visible until you login and switch back out, to which at the point it is removed.
I also tried the elevating admin rights shortcut, to see if I could run the .bat files I made on a non-admin account. I would have thought that for admin purposes if you set up a task to run reguardless if the user was active or not to be able to get this to work, but it seems it doesn’t want to run in a non admin account even when I clicked on the exact same shortcut from both accounts.
But it seems that this all might not work anyway if our son changes his password from the one we would give him. It would seem that all these tasks would stop working, since they ask for the admin password from the user that these would be running under. If our son did change the password the only last fail safe I could think of was setting his computer with daily back ups that can selfextract incase of complete system failure. Then we could use a admin reset system to get a new password, and once we were finished checking the system we could just restore from the last back up image removing any traces of our snooping.
Unfortunately parent controls have turned out to be less then effective. They either blocked too much or not enough, and reguardless if we were informed or not, he would find a way to bypass them anyway. It seemed anything that we did could be bypassed because our son could search about it on the internet and find a way around it. The best we can find out things he doesn’t know about it. As soon as he knows that we can check his computer he will find a way around that. Control is only as good as it can be unknown.
I know this all sounds like we’re terrible parents, but really if someone (even if you love them) is determined enough they will do anything to get what they want. It really used to be more of a preventive measure when he was younger. But now that he won’t be using the family computer anymore, we don’t feel we really need to restrict him too much, we just want to be able to reserve control of his gift if he’s really out of line, and the only way we will be able to do that is if he never knows he ever lost control in the first place.
Thank you Brent for replying so quickly. If you have any suggestions on how to imrpove the task scheduler ideas I had or with UACless Elvated rights on a nonadmin account, please let me know.
Rob
I do apologize if my english is hard to read, it is not my first language. Thank you again for your time.
That really seems like an overly complicated and convoluted way to keep your son locked out. There are simpler and more elegant ways to do what you’re trying to do, but that’s not really the point of my reply.
Why go to such effort to make sure that he’s not looking at anything “wrong”? By acting so weird with that kind of stuff, all you’re doing is fetishizing it, making it out to have some sort of weird power, so that when he’s old enough that you can’t keep him out anymore, he’ll be more likely to become addicted.
Even given that, I don’t think that anyone is going to turn into some sort of perverted or violent monster because of something they saw on the internet when they were 14. If they do end up that way, I think there are other explanations.
I am getting different error message (Windows 7 home premium)
C:\Windows\system32>/active:yes
The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect.
Khanw – you need to type the whole thing in, so yours would read:
C:\Windows\system32>net user administrator /active:yes
hey how to you turn administrator log in off just active:no? i hope this doesn’t make it so I can’t use administator at all just a thought that came through my mind
Yeap. Make sure you have another user account with admin rights before you disable it.
Great solution.
Hey I need all the updates for Windows 7 and all the needed commands like this net user
Thanks yaar……..
I have just loaded Windows 7 Ultimate and my account has been locked out. I tried running the command net user administrator /active:yes from the command prompt in the repair mode option. It come sback and says that the commend was completed successfully but when I restart I do not get the option of logging in as the administrator. Any ideas on what I am doing wrong
bryce
Same Problem As previous poster. Any ideas?
I have done all the things but I can’t make an administrator command because he give me that he didn’t recognise the command.
I tried both things
C:\Windows\system32>net user administrator /active:yes and
C:\Windows\system32>Run as administrator
I have a czech version of windows 7, can that be the problem?
The command is:
net user administrator /active:yes
The rest of the line is an example of the prompt you should see before entering the command. If you successfully found the Accessories menu under Start, All Programs, Accessories,
and right-clicked “Command Prompt” and then selected “Run as administrator”, you would see the black command console with the prompt similar to above. Then just type the command.
How to make the Administrator account in Windows 7 only visible in safe mode?
I have no idea whats going on. I am the sole user and owner of my new pc.
I am constantly being told I am a User Account (which is what Windows 7 recommend) but whenever I want to install something it brings up Administrator password request.
When I go to Accessories, Command Prompt and select Run as Administrator it then asks for my Admin Password?!?!
I have no idea what this Password could be or how to simply login as Admin?
Alright you guys,
I am having a hard time getting the administrator option not working. Ill go to the cmd program, right click, comparability but everything is grayed out. I cant select run as administrator on it. Anyone knows why? I looked at my account and I’m under administrator… So why wont it let me do it?
Thanks
Jesse
Can’t edit my previous post, but I meant, I can’t get the administrator option working. Please ignore the ‘NOT’. lol
Thanks
Jesse
If that doesn’t work you can use this site: http://helpmerick.com/stop-the-microsoft-office-agreement-eula-from-popping-up-every-time-you-start-outlook-or-word-or-excel.htm
I know it says Vista but it worked for my 7 too. The only difference if that instead of clicking on the Program Files folder, you have to click on Program Files(x86). Worked really quickley and I’m not being bugged anymore.
Michelle can you explain the relevance of this? We are talking about administrator stuff and your talking about popups from microsoft?
I dont understand?
I love it when things work. Thanks for the helpful instructions w/graphics no less.
Thank you so much! Your fix is a life saver!
Thanks for the tip on how to enable the Administrator login in Win7. It was a perfect help.
Great tips short and very helpful!! thanks
I am having administrator permission problems. I am being frustrated in my attempts to copy an “*.exe” file on an external drive to my network file server (a NAS). When I try to copy the file I am stopped with the following message:
“You require permission from the computer’s administrator to make changes to this file.”
The external drive was the boot drive to another system and the boot files became corrupt, so I am just trying to backup certain files and data before reinstalling the OS. I am using a laptop with Windows 7 Home Premium. I tried running Windows Explorer as an administrator, but I was stopped with the same message.
I figured if I logged on as Administrator I would be OK. I followed this tip and ran Windows Explorer under the “Administrator” user account, and even opened Windows Explorer with Administrator privileges. Same result.
How do I provide “permission” from the Administrator for a copy and paste command to copy a file over to another drive?
hi, can any one help me out… i have used pendrive in my friend’s system which is running windows 7 in his absence, my query is can he come to know wat all i ve trasferred data from his system into my pendrive?