Maximum Number of Accounts Allowed on a Windows 7 System

Question

I need to know what the maximum number of accounts allowed on a Windows 7 system is.

A reference to something official would be ideal. (PHB Situation)

Answer 1

2^30, or 1,073,741,824.

Reference here - it refers to Active Directory, but the user's ID in the local store is assigned a RID in the same way as in AD.

Answer 2

The accounts are stored in the SAM, which is part of the registry (KB124594, if you really nead a reference for that). The registry however does not have any size limits beyond the maximum file size limit of the filesystem since Windows XP - see KB292726. So the answer would be that there is of course a limit (there always is one), but it is beyond any possible use case.

Answer 3

Can probably answered by trial-and-error. Create a little PowerShell script like this (pseudo code):

for (int i = 0; i < 1000000; i++) {
    Windows.CreateUser("User"+$i);
}

Run it on a test system and see if it breaks. Make sure to have at least 1TB of free space. Increase the counter if you have more free space.

Answer 4

There is no built-in limit, you can create as many of them as you want.