george said:
That is a built-in account with all Windows NT / 2000 / 2003 / XP systems
and because of it being 'built-in' it cannot be removed, nor should you
want
to, it's your final fallback in case things get out of shape.
You *can* however rename this account to read something else than
Administrator, just make sure *you* remember what you changed it intom
just
in case you might need it 6 months down the road. Also make sure you
remember the password you assigned to it.
and it's worth mentioning also, the default Administrator account may NOT
have been assigned a password during the setup of WindowsXP on Tim's
machine, ie, it may be a <blank> password or if his system was built/setup
by an OEM, maybe a password unknown to Tim. in either case, Tim should
*change* the password for the Administrator account, then write it down and
store in a safe place. why should he change it? obviously the Administator
account has full administrative privileges on the system, if a local or
remote hacker attempted to gain access to his machine, what account do you
think they're gonna try to hack-in with first? the Administrator account
with a <blank> password is a rather convenient place to start, i would
think.
to change the password assigned to the Administrator account, either logon
to the Administrator account with the current password, if known, possibly
<blank> or <password>, and change it from there
OR
if Tim doesn't know the password for the Administrator account, AND his own
user account is a member of the administator's group, then as an
administrator himself, he can change the password on the Administrator
account while logged-on to his own account.
so, to change the password on the Administrator account, do this:
- Start menu, Settings, Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Computer
Management
- in the Computer Management console, expand the (+) Local Users and Groups
tree, click on Users folder, right-click on the Administrator account,
select Set Password (ignore and click Proceed on the warning dialogue),
enter the new password twice, press OK
(note - the dire warning about the Administrator account losing access to
data can be safely ignored since in most cases, at least in Tim's case, the
Administrator account has only been used during machine setup, thus there
are NO encrypted files, security certificates, yadayadayada that could be
lost from that account)
tip - do NOT make the password for the Administrator account the same as any
other user account... that would simply be a dumb thing to do, use a STRONG
password for any account with administative privileges, and at least 8
characters long, mixed case with embedded numbers and punctuation... if
you're paranoid, that is ;-)
tip - a shortcut to the User Accounts Manager can easily be created also.
desktop, right-click, new shortcut, type LUSRMGR.MSC in the location field,
press Next, type User Accounts Manager for the shortcut name, press Finish.
next please...