Top 3 Ways to Fix Windows 10 Guest Account Not Appearing on Login Screen

The Windows operating system offered the option of logging in as the guest user for the longest time. But things have changed with the Windows 10 version. Some users are complaining that the guest user account is not appearing on the login screen of their Windows 10 computer.

The guest user account is useful when you share your computer with other people in the office or at home. The guest account on Windows keeps all of your apps and data from your main account separate and provides limited access to the guest user. When the guest user account disappears from the Windows login screen, other users may end up using the administrator account or attempting to break through.

Let’s understand why this happens and how to get it back.

What happened to the guest user account in Windows 10

Microsoft has removed the default guest user account that came preinstalled with Windows. But, there are ways to manage it using command prompt or PC management tool. We will explore both the options and a third where you can also create a new local user account.

With Windows 10 version 10159, Microsoft has disabled the creation of a guest account. So you are forced to use Microsoft account, sync it with cloud or local account to access Windows computer.

Microsoft has not provided any explanation as to why the guest user account was deleted. However, the feature is still available, as we’ll explore below. Although Microsoft has disabled this option, it remains hidden in the Windows system and you can make it work again.

1. Activate from computer management

As the name suggests, the computer management tool allows users to manage various aspects of their computer, including user accounts.

Step 1: Right click on the Start menu icon and select Computer Management. It can also be opened from the hidden menu which you can access by pressing Windows key + X keys.

2nd step: In the left sidebar, head to System Tools> Local Users and Groups> Users and you should see a list of all existing user accounts. One of them is Guest.

Step 3: Double-click the name of the guest user account and deselect “Account is disabled” to enable it. Click Apply and OK to save the settings.

It is not necessary to restart the computer. You should be able to view the newly activated guest user account in the Accounts section of the Start menu.

2. Create from command prompt

Try Command Prompt (CMD) in case the above method doesn’t work for you. We will create a new guest user account using administrator privileges.

Step 1: Find CMD in the Start menu and select Run as administrator to open it with administrator rights.

2nd step: Give the command below to create a guest user account named ‘Friend’. As we saw in the Computer Management Tool above, you cannot name the guest user account as “guest” because it already exists. This is the default guest user account.

net user Friend /add /active:yes

Step 3: Now give the command below to set a password. We chose not to set one up because guest user accounts don’t need it anyway. Type the password if you want and press Enter or leave it blank if you don’t want to set one. Repeat to confirm.

net user Friend *

Step 4: Windows will place all new user accounts in the “users” group, which means the account has all the permissions of a standard user account. Changing the group to “guests” will reduce the permissions and access of the guest user account to a lower level. The two commands below will remove the guest user account from “users” and add it to “guests”.

net localgroup users Friend /delete

net localgroup guests Friend /add

You should now display the new guest user account in the Start menu or at boot time, as we saw earlier.

3. Create a standard user account

You can create two different types of user accounts in Windows 10. One is administrator and the other is standard. This is also known as the guest user account. There are many differences between these two accounts, as we have discussed in detail. The standard user account is restrictive, unlike the administrator account which provides full access to system applications and files.

Welcome guest

Creating a standard user account in Windows settings without a Microsoft account and password is the best solution. It’s still not as restrictive as a traditional guest user account that we all love and use, but it works naturally. Additionally, Microsoft still supports it. The fixes mentioned above may or may not work on your system.

There are other ways to protect sensitive data. One way is to use OneDrive’s personal vault feature. A combination of these steps should help you secure the data associated with your Windows user account.