Is Windows ​10’s ‘Hidden Administrator Account’ a security risk?

We have two types of user accounts: local and Microsoft accounts. Over the years from Windows XP through Vista, Windows 7 and up to 8.1, I have always used local accounts, where you could easily control the security of your operating system by using a password-protected standard user account. However, to get the real benefits of Windows 10 requires creating a Microsoft account. (Of course, one way to ensure privacy is to create a new outlook.com account and just use it for log in purposes.)

From what I understand, Windows 10 automatically generates another super or elevated Administrator account during installation, and this account is hidden by default for security reasons. Unlike the normal Administrator account, this runs all programs with admin rights by default, without that annoying UAC box appearing when you attempt to run a program. What is to stop any malware installing itself on your PC?

Also, is it best to enable the hidden Administrator account should it become necessary to access it for any reason? Marcus

The appearance of every new version of Microsoft Windows usually creates panic in people who think they’ve found something new, when it’s actually something old. Windows 10’s privacy settings, for example, are more or less identical to the ones in Windows 8. The email-based Microsoft Account logon system was also introduced four years ago, in 2012.

The “Hidden Administrator Account” has been around even longer. It first appeared in its current form in Windows Vista a decade ago, and has been in every version of Windows since. It was even in Windows XP, but you had to boot Windows in Safe Mode – or edit the registry – to see it.

Windows XP was – and still is – famously insecure. One reason for its insecurity was that most people logged on using what Unix users would call a “root account” with the power to do anything. Unix, Linux and Unix-based Apple Mac OS X users generally used less powerful accounts, which meant any malware couldn’t cause as much damage.

Right from the beginning, Windows XP had exactly the same design, with an Admin (root) account and less powerful user accounts. Unfortunately, few people used them, partly because of badly-written third-party software that could only be installed from root accounts. Many programs had been converted from DOS-based Windows where that was the norm: in Windows 95, Windows 98/98SE and Windows ME, every user could modify everything.

Enter the UAC

Microsoft stopped this by introducing UAC (User Account Control) in Windows Vista. This made users run a safe user account by default. If something needed Admin privileges, UAC would grey the screen and pop up a box, asking you to escalate to Admin level. As a result, badly written third-party software popped up loads of UAC interruptions, which eventually pressurised suppliers to rewrite their software to avoid them.

Of course, Microsoft also provided a get-out so that impatient and arrogant users could turn down the level of UACs or turn them off, making their PCs less secure. But the UAC and other security improvements still led to a dramatic reduction in the number of Windows virus infections in Vista and Windows 7.

The “Hidden Administrator Account” has survived because it has a purpose. It allows you to upgrade Windows 7 to Windows 10 or whatever without running into a snowstorm of UAC pop-ups. Once the operating system is installed, the hidden account is disabled. You don’t need to know it’s there, and under normal circumstances, you should never need to use it.

However, you should never run a copy of Windows 7 to 10 with only one Admin account – which will usually be the first account you set up. If you use that Admin account all the time and it gets corrupted, you’re in trouble. You might be able to regain access by using the hidden admin account, but that’s turned off by default, and the process is obscure and prone to failure.

So, my advice is to forget all about the Hidden Administrator Account. Instead, create a second Admin account that you can use if your original account is corrupted, or you forget the password, or something bad happens.

User accounts

You already know the dangers of working with a full Admin or root account. For this reason, Microsoft has provided several alternatives with different levels of security and control.

All the adults that use a Windows 10 PC should have their own standard user account. As the sole administrator of one or more PCs, you can set these up by going to Start, running the Settings app and clicking Accounts. Select “Family & other users” from the left hand menu, and choose whether to “Add a family member” or “Add someone else to this PC”. If you choose “Add a family member”, you then get two options: Adult and Child.

When you add a non-family member, they should use their own MSA. That way they will have access to their own apps, but they won’t have access to family information. If you set up a child account, you can have it monitored: they can only access websites and apps that you have approved, and you can set time limits and curfews. You can also provide accounts with access to school or work networks, including device management networks (MDM).

Further, you can provide “assigned access” so that a user can use only one Windows Store app, such as Skype. You could use this to enable a child to play a single game, or for gathering information, etc. For example, a club could use it for a survey.

When you limit what people can do on a PC, you limit the amount of damage that they can do, and the amount of damage that malware can do.

Using a Microsoft Account

You are correct in saying that you need to log on to Windows 10 with a Microsoft Account (MSA) to make full use of its features. This applies whether the account is an Admin account, a standard account, or a child account, etc, and I don’t think it makes a significant difference to your security.

Windows 10 is a mobile operating system delivered and maintained from the cloud. Using an MSA enables Windows 10 to get your email automagically, and lets you save files to your OneDrive cloud. It means apps are securely installed and updated from the online Windows Store – exactly like Google Android and Apple iPhone and iPad apps.

It means you can “roam”, signing on with your MSA on different PCs, sync data, or get a whole new PC set up like an old one, with the same apps and settings. Indeed, a Microsoft Account also works across Xbox One games consoles, Windows smartphones, and dozens of apps on Apple iOS and Android devices.

You are correct in saying that you can open a new email account at outlook.com for your log-on to Windows 10, and this does not require any personal information. You don’t have to use it for email and, unlike Google, Microsoft does not data-mine your emails for advertising purposes.

Alternatively, you can use a non-Microsoft email address to set up your MSA, but this gives Microsoft more information than it would get from a token outlook.com address. If you use, say, a Gmail address, Windows 10 will still work with OneDrive, Microsoft’s free online Office suite and related programs. However, as soon as you click the email tab, Microsoft will create an outlook.com email service that can send emails “from” your Gmail address.

You can also use a purely local account, without an email link. However, you will eventually end up using one with the Microsoft Store. As with the Apple and Google stores, you have to log on, even if you never intend to buy anything.

At least the Microsoft ecosystem supports both local and cloud-based computing across all the leading platforms, stretching from USB compute sticks to giant server farms. Neither Apple nor Google does that.

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