On Fri, 19 Mar 2010 09:49:03 -0700, john ha wrote:

I have heard of the "administrator password" for a super-administrator.

But I have never "set" the "administrator password" or "super admin password".

Wow, you're getting answers that are all over the map. Let me try to
clarify here.

1. There is no such thing as a "super-administrator. There is an account
named Administrator and you can add additional accounts that are members of
the Administrators group.
2. The difference between the account named Administrator and an account
that is a member of the Administrators group, is that the account named
Administrator, if used, will always have an administrative level access
token and will not be required to elevate by UAC when attempting to perform
a privileged operation.
3. Safe mode does not automatically "boot" into any particular account, be
it the Administrator account, an account that is a member of the
Administrators group, or a standard user account. Assuming you have a
password set on the account you need to logon after you've booted to Safe
mode.
4. In Vista and Windows 7, the account named Administrator is disabled by
default, so although you don't set a password on the account named
Administrator during setup, the account simply can't be used on a default
system regardless of what mode you're booting into.
5. From a security perspective there's really no reason to set a password
on the account named Administrator because of the previous point. In order
to be able to use the Administrator account, a hacker would first have to
crack the password of an existing account on your computer that is a member
of the Administrators group. If they were able to do so, they'd already
have administrative access to your computer and would have no need to use
the account named Administrator.
6. Finally, in order to take advantage of Safe mode in the first place, an
attacker would need to have physical possession of your computer, in which
case, the computer is no longer yours, and it belongs to the hacker any
way.


--
Paul Adare
MVP - Identity Lifecycle Manager
http://www.identit.ca