Renaming Guest Account

[Gary Brown]

Hi,

When I slipstreamed SP3 into XP I renamed the Guest account to what my user
name should be. How do I undo that?

Thanks,
Gary

 

[Malke]

Hi,

When I slipstreamed SP3 into XP I renamed the Guest account to what my
user
name should be. How do I undo that?

The Guest account is a system account and should not be used. It is disabled
by default and that's the best thing to do. Log into a user account with
administrative privileges (or the built-in Administrator account*) and
enable Guest, rename Guest back to Guest, disable Guest.

*If you have XP Home, the only way to access the built-in Administrator
account is in Safe Mode.

Malke

 

[Martin C]

In that case, this leads to a few questions. According to
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/300489, they recommend that the guest
account is NOT disabled. Due to the restricted privileges associated with
'guest', some may want to retain it to allow restricted access.

Personally, I have disabled the Guest account on my PC ages ago, but would
still like to understand the reasoning why it should not be used and even
disabled.

Martin.

 

[Malke]

In that case, this leads to a few questions. According to
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/300489, they recommend that the guest
account is NOT disabled. Due to the restricted privileges associated with
'guest', some may want to retain it to allow restricted access.

Personally, I have disabled the Guest account on my PC ages ago, but
would still like to understand the reasoning why it should not be used and
even disabled.

From TechNet:

"The Guest account is intended for users who require temporary access to the
system. However, if this account is enabled, a security risk may exist
because an unauthorized user could gain anonymous access to the system
through this account."

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb418978(TechNet.10).aspx

Malke

 

[Gary Brown]

Hi,

When I slipstreamed SP3 into XP I renamed the Guest account to what my
user name should be. How do I undo that?

I will answer my own question -

Open

Control Panel / Administrative Tools / Local Security Policy.

Then, in the tree at the left, open

Security Settings / Local Policies / Security Options.

In the right pane you will see

Accounts: Rename guest account [current name]

Double click on that entry and rename the guest account as you wish.

Gary