# PostgreSQL user question

**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/postgresql-user-question/493755
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [April 20, 2009, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/postgresql-user-question/493755 "2009-04-20T18:26:17Z")
**Posts on this page:** 2
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![Mr.Slant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c57346/32.png) [@Mr.Slant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Slant)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2009, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/postgresql-user-question/493755/1 "2009-04-20T18:26:17Z")

</div>

I have installed Postgresql on a Windows host.  
It works nicely, logging into the admin tool is just fine, but when I attempt to run the command-line maintenance utility, it keeps asking me for the password for an account named after my WINDOWS username, rather than for the ‘postgres’ user.  
How do I tell, for instance, dropdb in PostgreSQL that I wish to be prompted for the ‘postgres’ user’s password, and not the password for the ‘mrslant’ user?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![Terminus\_Est](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terminus_est/32/3087_2.png) [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2009, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/postgresql-user-question/493755/2 "2009-04-20T18:49:16Z")

</div>

It’s been a while since I’ve used Postgres, but according to the [Fine Manual](http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.3/static/app-dropdb.html) you specify a user via “-U _username_”. You can also use the environment variable PGUSER to specify this by default.
