How to Log In as a Local Administrator on a Domain-Joined PC

Sometimes you need to log in to a domain-joined computer with a local account — any local user, not necessarily Administrator.

It’s very simple.

Put a dot and a backslash in front of the user name.

For example, to log in as the local admin:

.\Admin

and the password.

The dot means “this computer”, so Windows uses the local account instead of the domain one. The same works with the full computer name: COMPUTERNAME\Admin.

Of course, the local user must already exist on that Windows machine. Works on Windows 7, 10 and 11.