Administrators is the minimum group membership required to complete this procedure. Review the details in "Additional considerations" in this topic.

To disable or activate a local user account
  1. Open Computer Management.

  2. In the console tree, click Users.

    Where?

    • Computer Management\System Tools\Local Users and Groups\Users

  3. Right-click the user account that you want to change, and then click Properties.

  4. Do one of the following:

    • To disable the selected user account, select the Account is disabled check box.

    • To activate the selected user account, clear the Account is disabled check box.

Additional considerations

  • To perform this procedure, you must provide credentials for the Administrator account on the local computer (if you are prompted), or you must be a member of the Administrators group on the local computer.

  • When a user account is disabled, the user is not permitted to log on. The account appears in the details pane with an X on the icon.

  • Before you activate a disabled account, make sure that the account was not locked out for security reasons.

  • When a user account is activated, the user is permitted to log on normally.

Additional references