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/Linux 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 Enter.
5. Type 1 in the “Value data” box, and press .
6. Restart the computer.

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.