The following guide explains how to configure those user accounts for optimal system security, and while it does so with Windows 7 in mind, it can be easily applied to previous Windows OS’ as well.

It may not sound that bad to have additional user accounts configured on the system. The secure way however is to either deactivate accounts that are not needed, or password protect them so that no one without proper authorization can log in using one of those accounts.

Probably the easiest way to do that is to use the Local Users And Groups Policy. It can be opened with the shortcut Windows-R, typing lusrmgr.msc and hitting enter.

Please note that this control panel is only available in Windows Professional, Ultimate and Enterprise and not Basic, Starter or Home editions.

Once loaded it displays the two items Users and Groups in the left sidebar. A click on users displays all users of the operating system.

windows7 users lusrmgrmsc

A double-click on an entry opens a properties menu for the selected user. Here it is possible to disable the account. It is recommended to disable the guest account in Windows 7, as it is usually not used at all.

disable windows7 guest account

Checking the “Account is disabled” box and clicking on Ok will disable the account, so that no one can use it to log in.

The Administrator account is the second account that gets automatically created during installation. It is disabled by default, and a double-click can be used to verify that.

A right-click on a user account opens a context menu with options to set passwords for each account. It is a good security practice to set secure passwords for all accounts, even the disabled ones. The password should have a length of at least 16 chars, and consist of numbers, letters and special chars.

As mentioned previously, Windows 7 Home, Starter and Basic owners do not have access to the configuration panel. Their option is to open the Control Panel from the Windows Start Menu, and there the User Accounts panel.

Information about the current account are displayed, plus an option to Manage another account.

manage another account

Please note that only the guest account is displayed along the user accounts of the operating system. A click on the Guest account displays options to change the picture of the account, and to turn the guest account off.

Now that the guest account has been disabled, it is time to do the same for the Administrator account. For that you need to open an elevated command prompt. Do that by clicking on the Start Menu orb, then All Programs, Accessories, right-click the Command Prompt link and select Run as administrator.

Now enter the following command to disable the Windows 7 Administrator account:

net user administrator /active:no

To change a password for a user account type

net user username password

with username being the name of the account, and password the new password.

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