Windows is a comprehensive operating system that allows you to dictate and manage access rights based on the currently active account. This makes it much easier for administrators to manage PCs in their organization by allowing them to grant elevated rights to selected individuals.

But what if you own your own PC? How do you manage local accounts? What if you don’t have an administrator account? Are you locked out forever? If you have these questions or have recently encountered an error message that required administrator permission, we have the perfect guide for you.

Here's everything you need to know about administrator accounts in Windows 11.

Note about Windows 10 compatibility: The guides on this page are compiled using Windows 11, so the UI used in the screenshots is from Windows 11. But these guides fully work on Windows 10 as well. So feel free to use the guides on both Windows 11 and Windows 10 PC.