Top 10 Vista Hacks

2. Unlock the supersecret Administrator account

Deep inside the bowels of Windows Vista, there's a secret Administrator account, and it's different from the normal administrator account you most likely have set up on your PC. This Administrator account is not part of the Administrator group. (Confused yet? You should be.) It's a kind of superadministrator, akin to the root account in Unix, and by default it's turned off and hidden. (In describing this hack, we'll always use the capital "A" for the secret Administrator account, and a lowercase "a" for a normal administrator account.)

In versions of Windows before Windows Vista, the Administrator account wasn't hidden, and many people used it as their main or only account. This Administrator account had full rights over the computer.

In Windows Vista, Microsoft changed that. In Vista, the Administrator account is not subject to UAC, but normal administrator accounts are. So the Administrator can make any changes to the system and will see no UAC prompts.

Turning on the Administrator account is straightforward. First, open an elevated command prompt by typing cmd into the Search box on the Start menu, right-clicking the command prompt icon that appears at the top of the Start menu, then selecting Run as administrator -- or just use the shortcut you created in the previous hack.

Then enter this command and press Enter:

Net user administrator /active:yes

From now on, the Administrator account will appear as an option on the Welcome screen, along with any user accounts you may have set up. Use it like any other account. Be aware that it won't have a password yet, so it's a good idea to set a password for it.

If you want to disable the account and hide it, enter this command at an elevated command prompt and press Enter:

Net user administrator /active:no

3. Tweak Aero's glass borders

The borders around system windows, such as dialog boxes and the Control Panel, are transparent in Windows Vista's Aero interface. These borders are hackable; you can shrink them, make them larger, and change their colors and transparency levels.

To make the borders larger or smaller:

1. Right-click the desktop and select Personalize.

2. Click Window Color and Appearance.

3. Click Open classic appearance properties for more color options.

4. From the dialog box that appears, make sure that Windows Aero is selected as the color scheme. Click the Advanced button on the right side of the dialog box. The Advanced Appearance dialog box appears.

5. Select Border Padding in the Item drop-down menu. To change the size of the border, type a new size for the border. (The default is 4.) Click OK, then OK again. The sizes of the borders will now change.

Windows Aero's transparent borders at their default size of 4 (top) and the borders with the padding size increased to 15 (bottom).

There's more you can do to the borders as well. To change the border color, transparency and more, right-click the desktop and select Personalize > Window Color and Appearance.

1. Choose a color for your windows on the top of the screen, or custom-build a color by clicking Show color mixer and then moving the sliders that appear to mix your own color.

2. To change the transparency of window borders, move the Color intensity slider to the left to make them more translucent, and to the right to make them more opaque.

3. To turn off transparency, uncheck the box next to Enable transparency.

Move the color intensity slider to change the amount of transparency in window borders. (Click image to see larger view.)

Top 10 Vista Hacks   1. Hack User Account Control   2. Unlock the supersecret Administrator account   3. Tweak Aero's glass borders   4. Protect your privacy by removing Windows Vista metadata   5. Power up Windows Vista's context menu   6. Speed up or turn off Windows Aero   7. Bypass the Windows Vista log-on screen on multiaccount PCs   8. Hack Vista's blinking cursor   9. Hack Vista's screensavers 10. Make Windows animation go slo-mo