IUSR and IWAM Accounts Are Re-created When the IIS Admin Service Is Restarted

If you delete the default user accounts for Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS), the accounts are re-created when the IIS Admin service is restarted.

This behavior is by design.

If you create individual anonymous and process accounts to isolate users in IIS and to help make IIS more secure, you may want to delete the default IIS accounts, IUSR_computername and IWAM_computername. However, these accounts are automatically re-created when the IIS Admin service is re-created.

Note This article does not apply to Internet Information Server version 4.0.

Important This section, method, or task contains steps that tell you how to modify the registry. However, serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Therefore, make sure that you follow these steps carefully. For added protection, back up the registry before you modify it. Then, you can restore the registry if a problem occurs. For more information about how to back up and restore the registry, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

To prevent the automatic re-creation of the default accounts when restarting IIS, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, and then click Run.
2. Type regedit, and then click OK.
3. Locate the following registry key:
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\InetStp
4. Right-click InetStp, point to New, and then click DWORD Value.
5. Type DisableUserAccountRestore. Do not change the default value.
6. Quit Registry Editor.
7. Click Start, and then click Run.
8. Type cmd, and then click OK.
9. At the command prompt, type iisreset, and then press ENTER.

If the registry key exists, the accounts are not automatically re-created. If the registry key does not exist, the accounts are re-created.