Thursday 29th of July 2010

How To Become The SYSTEM User In Windows XP

December 30, 2008 by Ivan  
Filed under Articles, Windows Tips

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If you think Administrator has the largest privileges onto the computer, then you are wrong. There is a user who is named SYSTEM. SYSTEM has full control of the operating system and it’s kernel. If you open windows task manager (press ctrl+alt and delete) you will see that System User controls several processes. These processes cannot be closed by Administrator. In this tutorial we will see how to trick Windows into running our desktop as System. So we’ll get a much greater privileges over computer.

1.Open Command Prompt. Go to Start , then Run. In Run option type cmd and click OK. After this will open Command Prompt, or Start->All Programs ->Accessories->Command Prompt

run command prompt

2. In Command Prompt write at 13:55 /interactive “cmd.exe” and press enter , the time is usually a minute or two ahead of your present time in the 24 hours format.

cmd

After a minute or two will appear new Comand Prompt Window wit different title bar. It has changed from cmd.exe to svchost.exe.

svchost.exe

3. End current explorer.exe process. Open Task Manager, select explorer.exe and click End Process.

End Process

4. In new Comand Prompt with title svchost.exe write cd.. and press enter , then write explorer.exe and press enter.

After this you will become SYSTEM user,



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Comments

51 Comments on "How To Become The SYSTEM User In Windows XP"

  1. Geoserv on Wed, 31st Dec 2008 12:45 am 

    STUMBLED!

    This is something I never knew about, I thought Admin was the highest level.

    Thanks.

  2. Give yourself more power than Admin on Wed, 31st Dec 2008 12:50 am 

    [...] on Windows XP? I didn’t until today, here’s a tutorial on getting it and what exactly it is. How To Become The SYSTEM User In Windows XP Who’d a thunk. Geoserv. __________________ Latest Web Launches: Get In On! – Brand NEW! Join [...]

  3. mox on Wed, 31st Dec 2008 1:39 am 

    stumbleupon never ceases to amaze me :)
    does this work for Vista as well?

  4. Ivan on Wed, 31st Dec 2008 1:51 am 

    No, only on in XP. In the Vista , it was disabled to increase security.

  5. edd on Wed, 31st Dec 2008 2:31 am 

    Haha, I remember doing this in college, it was the only way to get online because they hadn’t configured the user access properly, so normal accounts couldnt access the internet. :D Good times.

  6. Katanashi on Wed, 31st Dec 2008 2:59 am 

    there is really no point of running under SYSTEM unless you want to open your computer up to other threats (assuming an average user tries this) or you know how to fix anything you break from acting as SYSTEM

    also, why has it taken this long for an article like this to appear? its very clear that SYSTEM is higher than administrator since you could not terminate any SYSTEM processes even if you were highest level admin (like in vista, running root administrator, which is a hidden account and setting your normal account as admin does not even has as many privileges as root admin)

    anyways, getting off track… if you try this, be prepared for anything you might break.

  7. Chetan on Thu, 1st Jan 2009 9:41 am 

    Hi…!
    I like this site very much,thanx for solving my problems!
    Nice site!

  8. jmouse888 on Tue, 17th Feb 2009 9:06 pm 

    on a properly configured and locked-down windows environment this cannot be done since the user doesn’t have the privilege to access the “at” command.

  9. Fukinchinpao on Thu, 19th Feb 2009 2:49 am 

    Hey I got User Denied.

  10. Joshua Henderson on Tue, 24th Feb 2009 9:05 pm 

    Whats new things can you do with this power?

  11. Alexwebmaster on Tue, 3rd Mar 2009 11:20 am 

    Hello webmaster
    I would like to share with you a link to your site
    write me here preonrelt@mail.ru

  12. Tom on Sat, 7th Mar 2009 6:39 pm 

    I’m no techie, but got locked outta my admin. account thanks to “family differences” i get access is denied after the first entry in the command prompt, any advice?

  13. anonym on Tue, 17th Mar 2009 2:38 pm 

    Access denied.

  14. Josh wheeler on Sat, 18th Apr 2009 8:45 am 

    I think administrator is better because there’s a lighter risk of screwing up the system. Somehow, on my computer, I have firefox but it has been unintalled incorrectly and cant be used.it just sits on my computer. Any advice for future referance uncase I unintall somethitng correctly? and how do you uninstall CORRECTLY???

  15. josh on Wed, 29th Apr 2009 5:56 am 

    THIS DIDN’T WORK EITHER!!!! DO ANY OF THESE HACKS ACTUALLY WORK????!!!!!!

  16. pokewak on Fri, 1st May 2009 9:52 am 

    FAILED ACCED DENIED?? WHY

  17. Robyn on Wed, 6th May 2009 1:46 am 

    wow, great information, my household has changed from xp to Vista, bot sure that was a good move.
    what a helpful article, must show hubby, he is the one that investigates these items.

    I am glad to have visited your blog

  18. Fred Dupont on Wed, 6th May 2009 4:09 pm 

    I never knew that a system user type existed… Nice hack; I read the comments about breaking things…

    Precisely, what can a system user do that an admin cannot?
    (in other words, what is this for/ any use?)
    Thanks

  19. Ivan on Wed, 6th May 2009 5:08 pm 

    @Fred Dupont

    It is very useful when you have limited privileges on the computer, for example at school or at work. I often use this tip on colleges computers. That is useful purpose of system user,also it has more power over Administrator, but nothing really useful, for example you can close system process
    So at home you should use administrator user , if you are at school or work and you have limited privileges , then this tip can help you out.

  20. Fred Dupont on Thu, 7th May 2009 6:33 pm 

    okay, I understand, thank you for the clarification, appreciate.
    One more question: How can I protect my computers against someone wanting to gain system privileges?
    Thanks

  21. Ivan on Thu, 7th May 2009 8:58 pm 

    @Fred Dupont
    You should restrict the use of cmd , without cmd this tip isn’t possible , but that isn’t all, cmd can be easy enabled with notepad (Open Notepad and write command.com, save file as .bat ) , so you need to restrict notepad too.
    This tip is only possible on Windows XP, so if you have other operating system , then you souldn’t worry.

  22. Fred Dupont on Fri, 8th May 2009 3:49 am 

    Thank you – say, notepad is disabled; can I download a .bat from an ftp server (or from a memkey), save it and crack up XP?
    …in that case I must disable all ports and write on disk + disable USBs…
    well, moving out of XP I suppose…

  23. Nicole on Mon, 11th May 2009 1:39 pm 

    what if the administrator has blocked access to the command prompt, register editor and the task manager? (administrator is also password protected in safe mode)

  24. Tanner on Tue, 12th May 2009 11:58 am 

    Again, I got “Access Denied,” Is there any way around it?

  25. Janie on Sat, 16th May 2009 1:54 am 

    Is htere a way to undo it unless you just want temperary access?

  26. pokewak on Wed, 10th Jun 2009 8:05 am 

    ACCESS DENIED WHY?? GOT ANY OTHER WAY?

  27. Umair Rashid on Wed, 17th Jun 2009 12:18 pm 

    “Access Denied”

  28. Assault ( http://krazzy4hacks.blogspot.com ) on Thu, 18th Jun 2009 5:59 pm 

    hi ivan nice article but this privelege escalation trick now dont work anymore coz Microsoft has patched this bug

  29. Assault( krazzy4hacks.blogspot.com ) on Fri, 19th Jun 2009 11:51 am 

    hi ivan nice article but this privelege escalation tricks works only if u have admintrator rights to the machine limited user cant access this trick all those who commented above saying that they have got Access denied must be limited or guest users

  30. Lidiwebmaster on Thu, 23rd Jul 2009 11:39 am 

    Its nice trick

  31. Gratuityworks on Mon, 14th Sep 2009 2:37 pm 

    Hello there. the latest post is 08. i hope more recent activity is available. i’d like to find a live site like this one for a change.

  32. Rhemynux on Sat, 24th Oct 2009 11:07 pm 

    thats a big shut…i never thought the system has more priviledge than the Administrator….

  33. nesor on Fri, 27th Nov 2009 9:47 am 

    When I did this, after every boot of the system I get screen with windows default wallpaper ( the green meadow ) for about 5 sec. Is there a way to remove it ?

    Regards, nesor!

  34. Abu mathew on Mon, 21st Dec 2009 10:28 am 

    I did try the steps , but the command prpmt is not changing to svchost.exe after the specified time;;
    What can be the reason?
    Plz help;;
    -Abu mathew
    abumathew1988@gmail.com

  35. Waseem on Fri, 25th Dec 2009 5:39 am 

    Hi Abu,
    All you need to do is put the above command and make sure that you specify the time in 24 hours format and also it should be 2-3 minuter later time.
    Wait for 3 minutes and see, your cmd will be renamed to svchost

    Good luck..!
    Waseem Ahmed V

  36. Karthi on Tue, 5th Jan 2010 4:45 am 

    I got “Access Denied”…..

  37. Abhishek on Wed, 27th Jan 2010 6:53 am 

    Hey It’s sayong access is denied pls hlp

  38. Ezas on Mon, 22nd Feb 2010 7:24 am 

    Amazing tricks man, goin to try this… thanx

  39. zero on Tue, 23rd Feb 2010 10:27 pm 

    mines not working.

  40. final crash on Thu, 25th Feb 2010 6:47 pm 

    how about seven?
    does it work on seven?
    sorry about bad english!

  41. h4wt_b3t4 on Thu, 1st Apr 2010 8:45 pm 

    Woah! Thanks a bunch for the tutorial, Ivan :) My school is smart enough to not let you edit settings or download executables, but not smart enough to keep you from running command prompt (they’ve picked up on a few things I’ve done like this before, back when I was at the middle school- the high school has yet to block certain things).

    Thanks again, this is purdy useful :)

  42. Swapnil Bunjkar on Mon, 12th Apr 2010 12:16 pm 

    Thanks for sharing this…..the best …the best …. the best no more words….thanks again..

  43. fish on Wed, 14th Apr 2010 10:35 pm 

    So I can use this as a guest logged into XP to gain full access to XP even if there is a password protecting the admin account? If so that’s awesome!

  44. rsmltrzo on Sun, 18th Apr 2010 5:16 pm 

    Ok im not sure if this works but if it helps to the access denied problem you could try to become an administrator and then try the system user…(In cmd type:net user and press enter, ill show you the list of users, to make an account administrator type:net localgroup administrators (name of the acc) /add and press enter, altough i havent try this yet because im already user but it could help… Good luck

  45. prashant on Thu, 6th May 2010 3:51 pm 

    hey this is d solution for , Access Denied…?? just log on using administrator account ??or ??you must run ‘cmd.exe ‘ by an admin.???Open my computer.?go to c:/windows/system32?select ‘cmd’?right click it and select run as Administrator..??so you just need to run the program with administrator privileges.

  46. spa on Tue, 25th May 2010 5:05 pm 

    access denied

  47. scrapbook.maxforum.org on Sun, 20th Jun 2010 12:41 pm 

    access denied

  48. helpthx on Thu, 24th Jun 2010 12:35 am 

    :( none of these work for me i just want permission no more access denied im so sad i tried everything anyone know any really good hacks damn it all

  49. Suwendra on Thu, 24th Jun 2010 2:42 pm 

    I can access the system.
    “Acess is denied”

  50. back_black_blank on Fri, 16th Jul 2010 8:22 am 

    dude…………..i couldn’t have access. Its’ Access Denied
    is there any other idea i really need it

  51. prasad on Fri, 16th Jul 2010 10:38 am 

    sir,
    I try to stop the running Explorer.exe file through cmd port by using,,, at 13:55 /interactive “cmd.exe”
    BUT i get ‘ “at” is not internal or external command”
    plase how to stop that through command promt

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