Blogs: Vista Administrator Password

Sie

Here are the basic steps to activate Vista’s Administrator account and assign it a password:

Logon to Vista using a standard user account
From the Start menu, navigate to the Command Prompt menu item in the Accessories menu
Right-click on the Command Prompt menu item and select Run as Administrator
Click the Continue button on the User Account Control dialog box
At the command prompt, enter net user administrator password, and hit Enter
At the command prompt, enter net user administrator activate:yes, and hit Enter
At the command prompt, enter exit and hit Enter to close the command window
Log off and logon as Administrator using the password you selected

Whats in place at present to stop anyone doing this with local access to a machine?
Im thinking a small batch file and its done in the blink of an eye.

Viral Email and sender has a admin account setup with a known password??

Im surely missing something.......

(I havent started looking at Vista yet)

JDMurray

As with Linux and Mac OS X, you need the Administrator's password to make the magic happen. It is true that a script might be able to enter the password at any point where it is required, but the author of the script will need to know the password in the first place.

By the way, Vista has some new security features for Windows, but it is hardly any more secure than Windows XP--especially of you always logon as a user with Administrator privileges.