A person responsible for managing a computer or network and who has full access to the hardware and software. Users are generally the administrators of their own computers, because fresh out of the box, whoever sets up the machine can create administrator privileges for the user.
If the machines are company owned, users are given fewer privileges. For example, they cannot change certain permissions or internal files. See
root level,
privilege and
access rights.
There Are Different Kinds of Administrators
In an organization's IT department, technicians often have administrator titles. See
data administrator,
database administrator,
network administrator and
system administrator.