Do I need the default administrator account in Windows XP?

Recently I upgraded my old Win98SE OS to XP Home Edition. The install went great. I am the sole user of my computer and did not opt to have a guest account. While searching My Computer I came across something that has me puzzled. Under My Computer / Properties there is an Advanced Tab. Within the Advanced Tab there is a section called User Profiles. This is where I'm puzzled. There are two accounts listed. One is for Administrator and the other has my name listed which I entered during the initial install of XP. If I am the sole user, are both accounts required? There is an option to delete either account (which I did not do). Here's my question. Do I need both accounts? Can I delete one of them or are they both required? I'm stuck on this one. Thanks for reading.

 

The administrator account is a default account that every windows xp installation has. I'm not sure if it can be deleted or not. You can however, delete your account (you'd have to do it while logged onto the admin account) and use the admin one but I wouldn't recommend it. If your account should ever get corrupted somehow (it happens to some) it's another way into the OS. If it won't boot to your account it will boot to the admin account if corruption is the cause of yours not booting. Also, you can use it to do things with your account that you couldn't do while logged onto it. If for instance, you're one of those that likes to delete the index.dat file in your temporary internet files, you can't do it while logged onto your account. You can from the admin account though.

The admin account isn't shown on the welcome screen by default if there's another user with admin privileges. It is available when you boot to safe mode though. There's a few other ways you can get to it though. Have a look at this.

Adding the Administrator Account to the Windows XP Welcome Screen

 

Great info. Thanks. Here is where the confusion lies. Being an avid Win98SE user I knew it was time for an upgrade. I purchased the XP Home Edition in the hopes of simplifying the OS as much as possible. After the install I realized XP Home Edition looks and operates more like Win2000 than Win98SE. There should be an option during the install process where the administrator and single user account can somehow be combined. Having two required separate accounts for only one user makes no sense. Thanks for reading.

 

It would make sense only if you use NTFS for hard disks. NTFS has ACL feature, which can lock you out if your account ever got trashed. In that case you would require another login from where you can get to your data. You can just forget about Administrator being there & keep using your normal other login - but & this is a big but, remember your Administrator password (if you have assigned any).

 

I did convert my HD to NTFS. Ran a clean install of WinXP. The Win98SE OS no longer exists.

 

In that case it does make perfect sense to have two Admin accounts. As Rsinfo and Zander have written, if you get into trouble with your Admin account, you have the defualt account to access the system with and correct the problem, that's why its there

Regards - Charles

 

Thanks for all the tips. Apparently I'm still going thru the learning curve graduating from Win98SE to WinXP. I'll keep both Admin and user accounts as suggested. Appreciate the help. I do believe we can put this thread to bed.