Windows 7 Admin Accounts

Question

On Vista, I was having trouble installing or using certain online games and some other software. It seemed that although the account I was using was classified as an Admin account, some software still had file-access isues. Some how, I do not remember how, I created or found an account called Administrator. When I logged in using that account, and installed software using that account, all was well.

Trouble is I do not recall if I created that Account at some point, or it was already there. Now in Windows 7, a clean install, I am experiencing similar issues. Trouble accessing files installed on my Admin account (named Robert, created at Windows installation time). I just downloaded a piece of software, used its installer to install it..then had to go and edit a profile.xml file the software uses. When I went to save the file, windows would not overwrite the existing file. I had to manually change the access rights to that file, then was able to overwrite it. Tried again, to edit a .txt file in the same folder for another piece of software. The file was put there by the respective installer, but even as Admin account user Robert, I was not able to overwrite the file without modifying the privileges. How do I get to the real, or create a real Admin account?

Answer 1

This is down to UAC, if you right click a file and choose Run as administrator, the program will have no trouble in writing to anywhere (well most places) on your system.

This is the way Windows now works and the only way around is to disable UAC (not recommended) or set compatibility mode on a program so it always launches as administrator.

As for the Administrator account, it still exists but is disabled by default - simply go to Computer Management and then expand Local Users and Groups > Users then enable Administrator.

However, I wouldn't recommend this (and I think the administrator account is still restricted by UAC).