How can I display the local Administrator account on the Windows XP Welcome screen?

John Savill

June 4, 2002

1 Min Read
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A. XP doesn't display the Administrator account on the Welcome screen by default. However, you can add this account by performing the following steps:

  1. Start a registry editor (e.g., regedit.exe).

  2. Navigate to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindows NTCurrentVersionWinlogonSpecialAccountsUserList subkey.

  3. From the Edit menu, select New, DWORD Value.

  4. Enter Administrator as the subkey name, then press Enter.

  5. Double-click the new value, set it to 1, and click OK.

  6. Close the registry editor.

The Administrator account will now appear on the Welcome screen. You can use these same steps to control which other accounts appear on the Welcome screen. Set the registry account value to 1 to display an account or 0 to hide an account. For example, to hide the account for user John, add a value named "john" to the registry subkey identified in step 2 and set the value to 0.

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