How to Recover an Admin Account in Windows 10

According to the recent stats, there are over 1 billion Windows 10 users globally. This operating system is, at this time, Microsoft’s most successful platform for business and home users. You can have different Admin and Guest user accounts to accomplish your daily tasks. To run a program with administrator privileges, you need to have an account on the computer with superuser access. Being an administrator lets you manage all your system processes fluently as well. But when do you need to recover an admin account for Windows 10?

There are many other reasons this account gets erased or locked. The most common one is that people forget their passwords, which can happen easily. Other reasons may be a recent systems update o another administrator on the machine changing the password. If you faced any of these issues lately, here are several ways to recover your Windows 10 admin account. Or, superuser access at the very least.

Note. We will focus on workarounds that let you sign in with administrator privileges, but not necessarily on the lost account.

1. Try enabling the built-in Windows 10 admin account

You can recover superuser access on a Windows 10 computer by activating the built-in administrator account. Follow these steps to do so:

1. Right-click the Start button at the bottom left of your screen.
2. Select Run from the menu to open the command box.
3. Now, type “net user administrator /active:yes”
4. Hit the Enter key and restart your PC.

2. Change a standard Windows account to an admin account

This method will convert your standard account, and it will become your admin account. Here’s what to do:

1. Go to the search box in the Start menu.
2. Type “user account” and go to Settings from there.
3. Select the user account.
4. Choose the option titled “Change account type”.
5. Select the account you want to make administrator.

3. Opt for Windows System Restore or Reset

If you set up user account control on your computer in the past, you can restore the system to a previous state and see if it comes back. This is how you can do it:

1. Use your guest account to sign in.
2. Press the Windows + L keys together to lock your computer.
3. Go to the Start menu and select Shutdown options.
4. Hold the Shift key and then select Restart.
5. Select Troubleshoot → Advanced Options → System restore.
6. You should have the option of logging in to your administrator account now.

Didn’t work? You can also decide on using the System Reset feature this way:

1. Follow the first four steps as shown in the previous method
2. Select Troubleshoot → Advanced Options → Reset this time.

4. Boot into Safe Mode and use the built-in administrator account

If you can’t log into your Windows 10 computer because you don’t have the right password, you may use Safe Mode to boot into your computer and reset it. Follow these instructions to start Windows 10 in Safe Mode:

1. Click the Start button.
2. Select Settings → Update & Security → Recovery → Advanced startup.
3. Select “Restart Now”.
4. Once restarted, you’ll see different options on the screen. Press 4 or F4 to run your computer in Safe Mode.

The default admin account should become accessible to you automatically after you enter Safe Mode (it doesn’t come with a preset password). To get your admin account’s password reset, utilize the administrator’s built-in account before restarting your computer to return to normalcy. You’ll need to delete and reinstall Windows if you didn’t already have any other accounts but were already using the built-in admin account. This is an advanced method we’ll have to demonstrate separately.

5. Create a new admin account in Windows 10

There is a series of steps you need to follow to get things back on track. You can make another administrator user this way:

1. Go to Start → Settings → Accounts → Family & other people → Add someone else to this PC.
2. Create a new user account.
3. Assign a user name, password, and password hint for the new admin user.
4. Proceed to “Next.”
5. Select “Change account type.”
6. Select the drop-down arrow and choose “Admin” to give it the administrator-level privilege.
7. Disable the previous admin user and restart your Windows 10 machine.
8. Log in to the new account.