All you need to do to find out the amount of existing user accounts is to open the command line in Windows and type the following command netsh dump > netsh.txt. Open that text document in a text editor and scroll down to the section entitled ‘Ras Configuration’.

You will most likely find the following user accounts listed there:

set user name = Administrator dialin = policy cbpolicy = none
set user name = Guest dialin = policy cbpolicy = none
set user name = HelpAssistant dialin = policy cbpolicy = none
set user name = SUPPORT_388945a0 dialin = policy cbpolicy = none

Plus the real user account that you are using to login into Windows. The command net user 'username' reveals detailed information about that user account. Just replace ‘username’ with the name of the account that you want to get information for.

net user Administrator is a built-in account for administering the computer/domain
net user Guest a built-in account for guest access to the computer/domain
net user HelpAssistant is a Remote Desktop Help Assistant Account.
net user SUPPORT_388945a0 is a This is a vendor’s account for the Help and Support Service.

I do not need those accounts. Maybe the administrator account could come in handy if I can’t login into Windows anymore with my normal user account but all the other accounts are a security risk and not needed at all. I therefor made the decision to remove the HelpAssistant and Support_388945a0 account and password protect the Administrator and Guest account.

The reason why I keep the Administrator and Guest account is not a choice of mine. It is simply not possible to delete those accounts. The next best thing is to password protect them properly.

You delete a user account in Windows using the following command: net user 'username' /delete. This would mean that I would write net user Guest /delete to delete the guest account.

Changing the password is as easy. To do that use the command: net user 'username' 'password. If I wanted to change the password of the Administrators account to ghacks I would use the command net user Administrator ghacks

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