If you want to temporarily grant standard users elevated privileges in a Windows operating system, you can use the internal administrator account. Windows 7 and Vista come with a built-in administrator. By default, this built-in administrator is disabled. However, you can enable this account through the command line.

Move the cursor to the bottom of the screen and click the Start button.

Click All Programs and select the Accessories folder. Next, right-click the Command Prompt and select Run as Administrator. You need administrative privileges to enable the built-in administrator account. Another way to access the Command Prompt is by typing CMD in the Start menu’s search box (see figure 1).

Type the following command in the command line: net user administrator /active:yes. If you typed the command correctly, Windows will tell you that the command is successful (see figure 2).

Restart your computer. In the log-in screen, you will now see the System Administrator account. This account does not have a password. However, you can create a password for it by accessing the User Account Control settings.

Disable the internal administrator account. If you no longer need this account, access the Command Prompt with elevated privileges, and type the following command: net user administrator /active:no. When you restart your computer, you will no longer see the System Administrator account.

Figure 1:

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Figure 2:

~Jean-Baptiste Juderson