The Administrator Account Appears on the Welcome Logon Screen

If you use "administrator" as the computer name in Windows XP Home Edition, the Administrator account appears in the Welcome logon screen.

The Administrator account exists in Windows XP Home Edition, but it does not typically appear on the Welcome logon screen. Msgina.dll is responsible for building the list of accounts to show in the Welcome logon screen. Msgina.dll removes the Administrator account from the list when it builds the list. Msgina.dll determines whether an account is an administrator account by comparing the security identifier (SID) of each user account with the well-known administrator's SID. If they are the same, Msgina.dll removes the account from the list. In this case, the computer name is "administrator" and the LookupAccountName function returns the SID of the computer.

Service pack information

To resolve this problem, obtain the latest service pack for Microsoft Windows XP. For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Hotfix information

A supported hotfix is available from Microsoft. However, this hotfix is intended to correct only the problem that is described in this article. Apply this hotfix only to systems that are experiencing this specific problem. This hotfix might receive additional testing. Therefore, if you are not severely affected by this problem, we recommend that you wait for the next software update that contains this hotfix.

If the hotfix is available for download, there is a "Hotfix download available" section at the top of this Knowledge Base article. If this section does not appear, contact Microsoft Customer Service and Support to obtain the hotfix.

Note If additional issues occur or if any troubleshooting is required, you might have to create a separate service request. The usual support costs will apply to additional support questions and issues that do not qualify for this specific hotfix. For a complete list of Microsoft Customer Service and Support telephone numbers or to create a separate service request, visit the following Microsoft Web site: Note The "Hotfix download available" form displays the languages for which the hotfix is available. If you do not see your language, it is because a hotfix is not available for that language. The English version of this fix has the file attributes (or later) that are listed in the following table. The dates and times for these files are listed in coordinated universal time (UTC). When you view the file information, it is converted to local time. To find the difference between UTC and local time, use the Time Zone tab in the Date and Time tool in Control Panel.

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section. This problem was first corrected in Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2.