In Windows Vista, basically there are two user types: the Standard user and the Administrator. By default, everybody is a “Standard user” with corresponding operation privileges of the system. But the system Administrator can “promote” or “demote” a standard user by giving them more privileges and remove some unnecessary privileges. The master administrator can also create an account for another Administrator level user and modify their privileges for a particular purpose.

In the following table, the typical operations and privileges by the standard users and administrators are listed.

In the article “Windows Vista User Account Control”, more details about the frequently used user groups and their functions are discussed. Various user groups and types are actually modifications based on the standard user or administrator, by the system administrator.