How to change a Standard user to Administrator account & vice versa

Windows 10 users can operate their system as Administrators or Standard users. The main difference between standard and admin users is their privileges. While Administrator accounts give you access to everything on the machine, standard accounts are more restrictive.

You may need to change a user account from a Standard account to Admin and back for various reasons. If you're wondering how to change your user account type, read this guide to the end.

Change Standard user to an Administrator account

We can change the account type of a user account in five easy ways. We'll explore the following methods in this section:

1. Change a user account type between Standard and Admin from User Accounts.
2. Change a user account type between Standard and Admin from Settings.
3. Change a user account type between Standard and Admin from Control Panel.
4. Change a user account type between Standard and Admin from Command Prompt.
5. Change a user account type between Standard and Admin from PowerShell.

Below, we have broken the above methods of changing user account types into straightforward steps.

1] Change a user account type between Standard and Admin from User Accounts

The User Accounts settings area is perhaps the easiest place from which to change user account types between Standard and Administrative users. Here is how to perform this operation using the User Accounts settings.

Right-click the Start button and select Run. In the Run dialog box, type netplwiz and press ENTER. Choose the user account whose type you want to change and click on the Properties option.

Switch to the Group Membership tab in the Properties window. This is where you select the user account type or access level. Pick either Standard user, Administrator, or Other for even more options.

Hit Apply and Ok for the two open windows and restart your computer.

2] Change a user account type between Standard and Admin from Settings

You can open Settings with the Windows Key, and I key combination. Go to Accounts and select Family & other users.

Find the user account you want to modify under Your family or Other users and click on it. Click on the Change account type button that's revealed.

On the next screen, select your preferred user account type from the dropdown and click on the OK button below.

3] Change a user account type between Standard and Admin from the Control Panel

Search for Control Panel from the Start menu and open it. Next, click on the View by option at the top right and change it to Category. Click on User Accounts. If you see the Change account type under the option, select that, or choose it from the next screen.

Pick the user account that you want to change by clicking on it, and click on the Change the account type link.

From the new options that appear, choose either the Standard or Administrator options to set their corresponding user account type. Finally, click the Change Account Type button below. After successfully changing the account type, exit the Control Panel and be sure to restart your computer.

4] Change a user account type between Standard and Admin from Command Prompt

If you're comfortable using Commands and don't mind saving an extra click or two, then this and the next methods are for you. Here, we're going to change the user account type using command-line functions.

First, run Command Prompt as an Administrator. Press the Windows key and search for Command Prompt. Right-click on Command Prompt and choose Run as an Administrator.

1. Change to a Standard user account

In the Command Prompt window, the following command changes the account type of the specified user to Standard.

net localgroup Administrators "ACCOUNT-NAME" /delete

NOTE: Replace ACCOUNT-NAME with the real name of the user account. Also, the account name of a Microsoft account is the first five letters of its email address.

2. Change to an Admin account

With the Command Prompt running with elevated privileges, type in the following command and hit the ENTER key:

net localgroup Administrators "ACCOUNT-NAME" /add

NOTE: Replace ACCOUNT-NAME with the real name of the user account. Also, the account name of a Microsoft account is the first five letters of its email address.

To confirm that the user account type has been changed, run this command. On running it, Command Prompt displays properties of the selected user account, including the user account types.

net user ACCOUNT-NAME

Exit Command Prompt now and reboot your computer. On the next Windows startup, you'll notice the changes effected.

5] Change a user account type between Standard and Admin from PowerShell

PowerShell works with few steps like the Command Prompt method. You can copy the commands and paste on the PowerShell window to avoid mistakes.

Press Windows key + X and select Windows PowerShell (Admin) from the context menu.

1. Change to Standard user

Copy and paste the following command line into the PowerShell window:

Remove-LocalGroupMember -Group "Administrators" -Member "ACCOUNT-NAME"

NOTE: Replace ACCOUNT-NAME with the real name of the user account. Also, the account name of a Microsoft account is the first five letters of its email address.

2. Change the user to an Administrator

Open PowerShell as an Administrator. Enter and run the command below in PowerShell:

Add-LocalGroupMember -Group "Administrators" -Member "ACCOUNT-NAME" 

Finally, you can close Command Prompt and restart your machine. You can make use of any method you find easiest to follow.

If you still feel like learning more similar tips, read this guide on deleting the inbuilt Administrator account.