Starting with Windows 11/10, Microsoft has pushed users to create a Microsoft Account connected users. However, there is still a need to create a local administrator account. This post will guide you on how you can create one using multiple methods.
What are the types of user accounts in Windows?
These can be standard user accounts where we can usually use Windows and its features or create an administrator account that allows us access to certain privileges available only for local administrator account users.
What makes the administrator account unique is that an administrator account has complete control of almost all the resources in a computer (files, directories, services, etc.). It can create more user accounts, assign permissions and user rights. In short, a local administrator account gives you complete control of your Windows device and gives you access to extra features unavailable otherwise.
With Windows 11, some of the things have changed. It includes creating a local administrator account on a Windows device as well. In this article, we’ll be looking at a few ways Windows users can create a local administrator account on their Windows PC and gain complete administrative control over their system. So without any further delay, let’s begin.
How to Create a Local Administrator Account in Windows
In this section, we’ll be going over a few ways to create a local administrator account on your Windows PC. These ways are specifically meant to work only on Windows, as the ways of creating a local administrator account on other Windows versions slightly differ. Listed below are the ways you can use to create a local administrator account on Windows 11:
- Add user account screen
- Windows Settings
- Windows Terminal or Command Prompt
- Powershell
Now we’ll take a look at a step-by-step guide to follow the ways of creating a local administrator account on Windows listed above.
1] Create Admin account using Add User Account Screen
Windows offers a direct option to add a user account to create or add someone or add Someone else to this PC or create a local account and convert it to an admin account.
- Type “Add User” in your Start Search bar. It will show the option “Add, Create users.” Click it.
- IT will open the Family & others Settings. Windows 10 lets you add family to your PC using the email id, but let’s skip that.
- At the end of that page, you have the option Add Someone Else to this PC under Other Users.
- Click, and it will open another window and still ask you for an email id or a phone number.
- On the same screen, you will have a link that says, “The person I want to add doesn’t have an email address.” Click it.
- Next, it will yet again ask you for your email id. Look below, and look for an option that says, “Add a user without Microsoft Account.” Click on it.
- It is precisely where we wanted to reach. The following window is straightforward. Choose a name, password, and your local account is ready. The next step is to make it an admin account.
It will create a standard user who is not linked with any Microsoft account. In the following steps, we will change this standard account to the Administrator account.
2] Create Admin Account using Windows Settings
Follow these steps to create a local administrator account via settings:
- Open Windows Settings using Win + I
- Look for Accounts, and click on it.
- On the right side, find and click on Family and other users.
- Click on Add account under the Other user’s section.
- Click on I don’t have this person’s sign-in information.
- Next, click on Add a user without a Microsoft account.
- Add a name, a password, create answers for security questions if you lose the password, and create a local Windows user account.
- Click Next, select the account you just created, and click on Change account type.
- Select the Administrator option and click on Ok.
That’s all you need to do. Relatively straightforward, right?
You now have created a local administrator account on your Windows device. Note that changing the account type is the step that is responsible for creating a local administrator account. If you skip that step, you’ll have a standard local user account on your Windows that will not have any privileges available in a local administrator account on Windows 11. As long as one carefully follows the steps listed above, creating a local administrator account is quick and easy.
2] Using Command Prompt or Windows Terminal
Windows users adept at typing and using Command Prompt or Windows Terminal may prefer to create a local administrator account on Windows. Yes, that’s right. You can also create a Windows 11 local administrator account on your computer using Command Prompt. Here are the steps you need to follow:
- Navigate to Start and click on it.
- Type Command Prompt. Right-click on the top result, and click on Run as administrator.
- Here is the command you need to type in it with changed credentials:
net user USER-NAME PASSWORD /add
By changing credentials, you need to replace the USER-NAME PASSWORD with a username and password of your choice while typing the command. For example, if your username is Tyron and your password is Tyron123, the command should look like this:
net user Tyron Tyron123 /add
4. You have now created a standard user account. The next step is to change this user account from a standard to an administrator account. Type the following command with changes credentials:
net localgroup administrators USER-ACCOUNT /add
Make sure to replace USER-ACCOUNT with the account name you wish to add to the administrators’ group.
Listed above are the steps you can follow to create a local administrator account on Windows 11 on your device using Command Prompt. Once again, changing the type of the created account from standard to administrator is a crucial step, and without it, you’ll have a standard user account.
3. Using Powershell
If we take a look at the technical definition, Windows PowerShell is a task-based command-line shell and scripting language designed primarily for system administration. It is a powerful tool for automating tasks and changing the Windows system.
Creating a local administrator account on Windows 11 using Powershell can be slightly more complicated than the other two ways listed above. Here are the steps you need to follow to create a local administrator account in Windows 11 using Windows Powershell:
- Open Start.
- Type Powershell in the search bar, right-click on the top result and click on Run as administrator.
- The first command you’ll need to enter is to secure your password beforehand. To do that, type the following command and hit the Enter key:
$Password = Read-Host -AsSecureString
Type the password, and hit Enter again.
4. The next step is to enter the command given below:
New-LocalUser "NEW_ACCOUNT_NAME" -Password $Password -FullName "USER_FULL_NAME" -Description "DESCRIPTION"
Replace NEW-ACCOUNT-NAME with the desired name for your account, USER-FULL-NAME with the user’s full name, and DESCRIPTION with any short description for the account. Hit the Enter key, and this will create a new account.
5. Now comes the part where we need to change the account type from standard to administrator by adding the newly created account to the administrators’ group. Type the following command to do that:
Add-LocalGroupMember -Group "Administrators" -Member "NEW_ACCOUNT_NAME"
Replace NEW-ACCOUNT-NAME with the account name you just created in the last step and hit the Enter key.
These were the steps you need to follow to create a local administrator account on Windows using Powershell. As you may conclude, using Powershell for this task is somewhat complicated compared to the other two ways of creating a local administrator account on a Windows PC.
This article discussed how to create a local administrator account that gives us complete control over the Windows resources on Windows 11/10 quickly and efficiently.
