When you want to restrict or block a user account, you can disable it temporarily. Here’re the steps to disable a user account in Windows.
Windows makes it quite easy to create a user account. All you have to do is set a username, assign a password, maybe answer some security questions and you are good to go. A new user account will have its own settings and personalization options. This simply means that you don’t have to worry about other users changing your settings. In fact, depending on the user account type, you can even place and enforce your own rules like restrictions of program installations, what options can they change, etc.
Though creating a new user account is pretty easy, you cannot say the same if you just want to disable a user account. Sure you can completely remove a user account or change its account type but Windows does not provide any easy way to disable a user account. In case you are wondering, disabling a user account is quite useful when you want to temporarily restrict it. For example, if you are sharing your computer with your kids or nephews, it can often be useful to lock them out when needed.
So, in this quick tutorial let me show the steps to disable user account in Windows.
Note: I’m using Windows 10 to show the procedure but the same steps can be followed in Windows 7 and Windows 8.
1] lusrmgr.msc Method (easy)
Advanced User Management (lusrmgr.msc) allows you to manage all the users in your system in a single place. Disabling an account is one such functionality. The best thing is, you can disable a user account with a single checkbox. Just follow the steps as is and you will be good. Keep in mind that the lusrmgr.msc tool is only available to Windows Pro users. If you are using Windows Home edition, I recommend you follow the second method.
1. First, open the Run dialog box by pressing the Win + R keyboard shortcut. In the blank field, type lusrmgr.msc and click on the “Ok” button. As soon as you press the button, Local Users & Groups snap-in window will open.
2. Here, click on the “Users” folder to see all the users on your system. Find the user account you want to disable and double-click on it.
3. In the Advanced Properties window, select the “Account is disabled” checkbox. Click on the “Ok” button to save changes.
As soon as you save the changes, the account is instantly disabled. In fact, you can even see a down arrow icon over the user account name/icon. That icon represents a disabled user account.
Since the user account is disabled, it will not appear on the login screen and the user cannot log into that specific account. Though the user account is disabled, the user account specific settings and files are still intact.
To enable the account, go through the steps again but uncheck the “Account is disabled” checkbox in step 3.
2] Command to Disable User Account
If you are a Windows Home user then you need to use a command to disable the user account. The good thing is, the command is pretty easy to remember and execute. Just follow the steps and you will be good.
1. First, open elevated Command Prompt window by searching for “cmd” in the start menu, right-clicking on it and selecting the “Run as administrator” option.
2. Before you can disable the user account, you need to know the user name of the target account. If you already know the username, skip this step. Otherwise, execute the below command to see the usernames of all the accounts in your system.
net user
3. Once you know the username, use the following command while replacing <username> with the actual username you got in the previous step.
net user <username> /active:no
As soon as you execute the command, the user account will be disabled instantly. Just like with the first method, the user account will not be visible on the lock screen and the target user cannot log into their user account.
If you want to reverse the process and enable the user account then execute the below command. As you can see, the command is very similar. All we did is to replace “no” with “yes”.
net user <username> /active:yes
That is all.
If you are stuck or need some help, comment below and I will try to help as much as possible. If you like this article, do check out how to enable the hiddle administrator account and how to get full details of user accounts in Windows.