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Show Admin on the Logon Screen

By Mohammad Yousef | August 2004

If you are a Windows XP user, you must’ve had to create your own account to gain access. However, and although you might not know about it, there’s also a hidden Administrator account which is visible only in Safe Mode. You might want to use the Administrator account in the normal mode as well. To do this, go to the logon screen, press Ctrl+Alt+Del twice and a logon dialog box should appear. Use “Administrator” as the username and press Enter unless the Administrator account is password-protected. But what if you’d like to see the Administrator account alongside all the other users in the logon screen? Tweak the registry.

Before I start, I must warn you that the registry is a crucial part of your system and messing around with it is dangerous. No, it can’t set off some nuclear reaction but improper use of it can severely damage your system. So, I only recommend registry hacks if you’re familiar with computers or at least able to carefully follow my instructions.

1. Open Registry Editor: Click Start | Click Run | Type regedit | Press Enter

2. Navigate to the following key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\ CurrentVersion\Winlogon\SpecialAccounts\UserList

3. Create a DWORD value and name it “Administrator” without quotes. If the value already exists, you don’t need to create it.

4. Double-click the value, change its value data from “0” to “1” and close Registry Editor.

Now if you log off or restart, you should be able to see “Administrator” on the logon screen even in normal mode. To hide the Administrator account, you must either delete the DWORD value called “Administrator” or change its value data to “0”.