How To Check if Your Windows User Account Has Administrator Rights

Wondering whether your user account in Windows has administrator rights? Here are a couple of methods to find out quickly.

On Windows, you can do a lot of things without having admin privileges. However, certain tasks like installing applications, modifying advanced system settings, changing the registry or group policy, etc., require your user account to have administrator rights. By default, the first user account you create in Windows has administrator rights. However, any subsequent accounts are Standard accounts. i.e., those accounts don’t have admin privileges.

When you have multiple users account or if another user creates your user account, you might have a situation where you don’t know whether your user account has administrator rights. Thankfully, on Windows, you have multiple ways to find out if your Windows account has admin privileges. In this quick and straightforward tutorial, let me show you the simplest way to quickly verify admin privileges in Windows. Let’s get started.

Good to know: How to check Windows account type

Check Admin Privileges Using the Settings App

The Settings app in both Windows 11 and Windows 11 shows if your user account has admin privileges. Here’s how to find out.

Windows 11

1. Press “Windows key + I” to open Settings.
2. Go to the “Accounts” tab from the sidebar.
3. If your account has admin rights, you will see “Administrator” under your name on the right page.
4. If you see “Standard” or “Standard User“, your account doesn’t have admin rights.

Windows 10

1. Open Settings by pressing the “Windows key + I” shortcut.
2. Click the “Accounts” option.
3. Go to the “Your Info” tab from the sidebar.
4. If you see “Administrator” under your name on the right page, your user account has admin privileges.
5. If you see “Standard” or “Standard User“, your account doesn’t have admin rights.

Verify Admin Privileges Using Control Panel

On both Windows 11 and Windows 10, you can use the Control Panel to verify if your account has admin permissions. Here’s how to do it.

1. Press the “Windows key” to open the Start menu.
2. Search and open “Control Panel“.
3. Select “Large icons” from the “View by” from the top right dropdown.
4. Click the “User Accounts” option.
5. If you see “Administrator” under your name, your user account has admin privileges.
6. If you see “Standard” or “Standard User“, your account doesn’t have admin rights.

Check If Your Windows Account Has Administrator Rights Using Command Prompt

While there is no single command that directly tells if your Windows account has admin rights, we can find out in which group your account falls under to determine its privileges. For instance, an account with admin rights will be in the “Administrators” group. Here’s how.

1. Open the Start menu by pressing the Windows key on your taskbar.
2. Search and open “Command Prompt“.
3. Type whoami /groups and press “Enter“.
4. If you see “BUILTIN\Administrators” in the command response, your user account has administrator privileges.
5. Otherwise, your user account doesn’t have admin privileges and is only a standard account.

Wrapping Up — Verifying Administrator Privileges for a Windows Account

As you can see, you have three easy methods to quickly find if your user account in Windows has admin privileges. While the first two methods are easy, the third method requires using a command line. These methods work for Home, Pro, and Enterprise editions. Whichever method you follow, you will know your account privileges pretty easily. If you are not an administrator, you can contact the admin of your system/network and ask them to change your account type.

That is all. If you have any questions or need help, comment below. I’ll be happy to assist.