Completely lost administration abilities

[Guest]

Did what I usually do on XP: created dummy user w/admin, drop real user to
limited, hide dummy via registry. On XP, this gives "Administrator" and real
user login icons on the login screen - nice and tidy. Not Vista. Still only
shows lowly real user.

Now, I have no way to undo it. Login only shows real user, no admin.
Ctrl-Alt-Del no longer gives place to type in hidden user name, all admin
operations ask for a password but nowhere to type it. No luck via safe mode.
From recovery panel, regedit shows nothing I did, so can't unhide dummy
account that has admin.

Help! How can I (1) edit the registry w/o admin privs, or (2) add another
user or activate administrator account w/o admin privs? Machine is not part
of a domain.

 

[Don Varnau]

Hi,
Can you, in Safe Mode, get to Control panel> Administrative tools> Computer
management> Local users and groups> Users ? If you can access Users, try
right-click> Properties> uncheck "Account is disabled" for admin accounts.

Hope this helps,
Don
[MS MVP- IE]

 

[Guest]

Safe mode wouldn't give me any extra rights either, all priviledged
operations asked for admin password, but nowhere to type it in.

Ended up doing a system restore from recovery environment to a time before I
did the changes, so at least the system is back to usable again.

Anyway, I had forgotten that Vista never enabled the administrator account
before I did this 'trick' so I really hosed myself.

Turns out the trick wasn't needed anyway, Vista is happy to show
administrator login whenever enabled.

XP won't show the administrator login if another non-hidden user has admin
privs, and user maintenance won't let you drop the last real login to a
limited user so you can get the real administrator login to show. Catch-22,
thus the 'trick'.

Hi,
Can you, in Safe Mode, get to Control panel> Administrative tools> Computer
management> Local users and groups> Users ? If you can access Users, try
right-click> Properties> uncheck "Account is disabled" for admin accounts.

Hope this helps,
Don
[MS MVP- IE]

Did what I usually do on XP: created dummy user w/admin, drop real user to
limited, hide dummy via registry. On XP, this gives "Administrator" and real
user login icons on the login screen - nice and tidy. Not Vista. Still only
shows lowly real user.

Now, I have no way to undo it. Login only shows real user, no admin.
Ctrl-Alt-Del no longer gives place to type in hidden user name, all admin
operations ask for a password but nowhere to type it. No luck via safe mode.
From recovery panel, regedit shows nothing I did, so can't unhide dummy
account that has admin.

Help! How can I (1) edit the registry w/o admin privs, or (2) add another
user or activate administrator account w/o admin privs? Machine is not part
of a domain.

 

[Don Varnau]

Glad you got it resolved. Thanks for the report.

Don