Local System differs from an Administrator account in that it has full control of the operating system, similar to root on a *nix machine. Most System processes are required by the operating system, and cannot be closed, even by an Administrator account; attempting to close them will result in a error message. The following quote from Wikipedia explains this in a easy to understand way:
You can trick the system into running a program, script, or batch file with system level privileges.
One trick is to use a vulnerability in Windows long filename support.Try placing an executable named Program.*, in the root directory of the “Windows” drive. Then reboot. The system may run the Program.*, with system level privileges. So long as one of the applications in the “Program Files” directory is a startup app. The call to “Program Files”, will be intercepted by Program.*.
Microsoft eventually caught on to that trick. Now days, more and more, of the startup applications are being coded to use limited privileges.
If it responds with an “access denied” error, then we are out of luck, and you’ll have to try another method of privilege escalation; if it responds with “There are no entries in the list” (or sometimes with multiple entries already in the list) then we are good. Access to the at command varies, on some installations of Windows, even the Guest account can access it, on others it’s limited to Administrator accounts. If you can use the at command, enter the following commands, then press [ENTER]:
Code:at 15:25 /interactive “cmd.exe”
When the system clock reaches the time you set, then a new command prompt will magically run. The difference is that this one is running with system privileges (because it was started by the task scheduler service, which runs under the Local System account). It should look like this:
You’ll notice that the title bar has changed from cmd.exe to svchost.exe (which is short for Service Host). Now that we have our system command prompt, you may close the old one. Run Task Manager by either pressing CTRL+ALT+DELETE or typing taskmgr at the command prompt. In task manager, go to the processes tab, and kill explorer.exe; your desktop and all open folders should disappear, but the system command prompt should still be there. At the system command prompt, enter in the following:
Code:explorer.exe
System user name on start menu
explorer.exe running under SYSTEM
What to do now Now that we have SYSTEM access, everything that we run from our explorer process will have it too, browsers, games, etc. You also have the ability to reset the administrators password, and kill other processes owned by SYSTEM. You can do anything on the machine, the equivalent of root; You are now God of the Windows machine. I’ll leave the rest up to your imagination.
ADMINISTRATOR IN WELCOME SCREEN.
When you install Windows XP an Administrator Account is created (you are asked to supply an administrator password), but the “Welcome Screen” does not give you the option to log on as Administrator unless you boot up in Safe Mode.First you must ensure that the Administrator Account is enabled:1 open Control Panel2 open Administrative Tools3 open Local Security Policy4 expand Local Policies5 click on Security Options6 ensure that Accounts: Administrator account status is enabled Then follow the instructions from the “Win2000 Logon Screen Tweak” ie.1 open Control Panel2 open User Accounts3 click Change the way users log on or log off4 untick Use the Welcome Screen5 click Apply OptionsYou will now be able to log on to Windows XP as Administrator in Normal Mode.
Start the Registry Editor Go to:HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows NT \ CurrentVersion \ Winlogon \ SpecialAccounts \ UserList \Right-click an empty space in the right pane and select New > DWORD Value Name the new value Administrator. Double-click this new value, and enter 1 as it’s Value data. Close the registry editor and restart.