With nothing more than a generic Windows 10 installation disc or USB flash drive, one can enable the built-in Administrator account with a little simple trick – and then use it to lock you out of your own system, or worse, access your private and sensitive files. In this post, we will walk you through the steps to delete the inbuilt Administrator Account in Windows 10.
By default, the built-in Windows 10 administrator account is disabled. The built-in administrator account in Windows 10 does not even require a password. If you enable the built-in Windows 10 administrator account by choice, you should always create a strong password to use with it.
Caution: It’s strongly recommended NOT to delete the inbuilt Administrator account.
How to delete the built-in Administrator Account
To delete the inbuilt Administrator account in Windows 10, do the following:
Since this is a registry operation, it is recommended that you back up the registry or create a system restore point as necessary precautionary measures. Once done, you can proceed as follows:
- Press Windows key + R to invoke the Run dialog.
- In the Run dialog box, type
regeditand hit Enter to open Registry Editor. - Navigate or jump to the registry key path below:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESAMSAM
- At the location, on the left pane, right-click the expanded SAM folder, and then click Permissions on the pop-up context menu.
- In the Permissions for SAM window, select the Administrators group. Then, enable the Full-Control and Read options under the Allow header.
- Click Apply > OK.
- Next, click View on the Registry Editor window menu bar, and then click Refresh.
- Now, expand the subfolders underneath the SAM folder until you get to the Names folder. The path is as follows:
SAM > Domains > Account > Users > Names
- Expand the Names folder to reveal the list of user accounts on the system.
- Right-click the Administrator folder, and then click Delete.
That’s it! You have successfully deleted the Windows 10 built-in Administrator account.
You can use the same process to delete the Default Account and Guest Account in Windows 10 as well.
To verify that the built-in admin account has indeed been deleted, you can open a command prompt by pressing the Windows key + R, then type cmd and hit Enter. In the command prompt window, type net user and hit Enter. This command will list all accounts on the system – even if they have been disabled.
Once the command executes, Windows will display a list of all accounts on the system. Note that the Administrator account is no longer visible.
You can also verify that the built-in Windows admin account is gone by opening the Computer Management console in Windows 10.
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To do this, invoke the Run dialog box, then type compmgmt.msc and hit Enter. Then, click Local Users and Groups and select the Users folder. Again, note that the Administrator account is not visible.