When meddling with my computers inner workings with the utility “TweakUI”, I discovered that inaddition to the users I already knew about, and the administrator, there was a mysterious fifth user registered on my machine, named “ASPNET”. The user does not have administrative privledges, and was until now completely hidden. I’m somewhat worried – How did this account get created, and what is it used for? Searching the internet was no help, I found only information about ASP.NET, which didn’t explain this mysterious user.
Can anyone help me? I’m using Windows XP, with all updates installed, and am very careful about avoiding spyware and viruses.
The ASPNET user is automatically created when you install Micorsoft’s .NET Framework on your PC. If you have automatic updating turned on, Windows probably installed that without your knowledge.
Unless you’re a programmer or are hosting a website on your PC, that user account doesn’t help any, but it also doesn’t really hurt. The account’s security is set very low.
If it makes you nervous, I’d suggest you disable it rather than delete it. That way you can re-enable it later if you install some software which needs it. That’s not likely unless you start playing with webmastering, but it’s always better to leave yourself a way out, and disabling will do that.