What happened to the built-in Administrator account and can I get it back?

As a matter of fact, there is a built-in Administrator account in Vista; it's just disabled by default - usually. If you upgrade an XP machine that has no administrative accounts other than the built-in Administrator, and the machine is part of a workgroup (not a domain), then you'll still have the Administrator account in the new Vista installation. But if you've installed Vista clean, or it came preinstalled on a new computer, the Administrator account is nowhere to be found. Here's how to enable it:

1. First log on with your own administrative account
2. Click Start and in the Search field, type mmc.exe, then hit ENTER
3. Click Continue at the UAC prompt to open the MMC console
4. Click File Add/Remove Snap-in
5. In the "Available Snap-ins" field on the left, scroll down and select Local Users and Groups, then click the Add button
6. In the Choose Target Machine dialog box, select Local Computer and click Finish
7. Click OK
8. Expand the Local Users and Groups node in the left pane and click the Users folder
9. In the right pane, right click Administrator and click Properties
10. On the General tab, uncheck "Account is disabled."
11. Click OK

Now you can use the built-in admin account!