Why are there 2 Administrator accounts on the Welcome page?

[pc nerd]

I reinstalled XP this morning & I noticed that there are 2 Administrator
accounts on the Welcome page. One is "Owner" & the other I created when I
reinstalled XP. I don't recall seeing the "Owner" account when I first got my
PC. I thought that the "Owner" account is supposed to be hidden. Can I delete
one of the Administrator accounts. If so, which one? Can I hide the "Owner"
account so that it doesn't appear on the Welcome page? Does the "Owner"
account allow me to do things that the other Administrator account won't?

Thank you.

 

[Richard in AZ]

Owner is frequently the default user (with admin. privileges) on computer such as HP, Compaq, etc.
Once you have your personal user setup, you can delete the Owner account.

 

[pc nerd]

It's an Alienware desktop. I don't recall seeing "Owner" when I first got the
PC. I got it in June 2005. One of the options that I paid for was what
Alienware calls "Alien Respawn". It's an imaging program. They used Norton
Ghost. After they installed XP, they created an image of my hard drive.
That's why I was kind of startled when I saw "Owner" after I ran Alien
Respawn. I hadn't seen "Owner" since June of 2005.

In XP books I've read about a hidden Administrator account. Is that what
"Owner" is? How do I see the hidden Administrator account?

So, you say that it is perfectly safe to delete "Owner"?

I'm the only user. Is it possible to skip the Welcome screen & go directly
to the Desktop? I believe that I read that somewhere.

Is the "Owner" a "super-administrator"?

Thank you.

 

[Malke]

pc nerd wrote:

See comments inline:

It's an Alienware desktop. I don't recall seeing "Owner" when I first got the
PC. I got it in June 2005. One of the options that I paid for was what
Alienware calls "Alien Respawn". It's an imaging program. They used Norton
Ghost. After they installed XP, they created an image of my hard drive.
That's why I was kind of startled when I saw "Owner" after I ran Alien
Respawn. I hadn't seen "Owner" since June of 2005.

Owner is the generic user account and it appeared because the "Alien
Respawn" is apparently an image created at the factory. Naturally they
don't know who is going to purchase the computer so they create the
generic Owner account.

In XP books I've read about a hidden Administrator account. Is that what
"Owner" is? How do I see the hidden Administrator account?

The Owner account is not the built-in Administrator account. If you have
XP Home, you can only access/see the built-in Administrator account in
Safe Mode. If you have XP Pro, at th Welcome Screen do Ctrl-Alt-Del
twice to get the classic logon box. Type in "Administrator" without the
quotes. If you didn't assign a password, the default is a blank.

So, you say that it is perfectly safe to delete "Owner"?

If you are not using the Owner account, you don't need to keep it.

I'm the only user. Is it possible to skip the Welcome screen & go directly
to the Desktop? I believe that I read that somewhere.

Yes. This link explains how:

Configure Windows to Automatically Login (MVP Ramesh) -
http://windowsxp.mvps.org/Autologon.htm

Is the "Owner" a "super-administrator"?

No. See above for what the Owner account is. There is no
"super-administrator" in XP. All user accounts with administrative
privileges are equal, including the built-in Administrator account. This
is different in Vista.


Malke