How to show ALL user accounts in User Accounts applet?

V

*Vanguard*

When I open the User Accounts applet in Control Panel, it shows my user
account (which is in the Administrators group), the guest account (which has
been disabled), and the aspnet_wp limited account (don't know yet what's
that for). It does not show the Administrator account and the backup
administrator account that I created.

If I open the Computer Management MMC under Administrative Tools, all the
accounts are listed under the Users node in the tree. I'm not sure if there
are any tasks or features in the User Accounts applet that cannot be
performed using the Computer Management MMC. I seem to recall that I had to
use both under Windows 2000.

I have already reconfigured Windows XP to get rid of the Welcome Screen.
I'd rather require users to use the standard login. Besides, the Welcome
Screen only supposedly works for stand-alone hosts and the standard login
window gets used for domain users. I'd rather not bother with 2 different
logon interfaces and just get used to using the standard one. Fast User
switching also got disabled which was just fine with me as that was another
task I was trying to figure out. I don't want more than one user session
active on my computer at a time along with all the subsequent concurrent
processes eating up memory. I also set local policy to NOT remember the
last login username. I don't want someone coming over to my computer and
already being given half of my login data (i.e., the username). I also
configured policy to require Ctrl-Alt-Del to login.

Okay, so before I started the admin accounts were not listed in the User
Accounts applet. After the changes (to revert to more of a Windows 2000
login interface), they still are not listed. I thought I had seen
selections in the TweakUI powertoy for Windows XP an option to select which
accounts to show. However, that was probably only for the Welcome screen.
Now when I go into TweakUI, there is no option to select which accounts to
show which is probably because I'm not using the Welcome screen anymore. I
recall that even when I was using the Welcome screen and using TweakUI to
include the Administrator and backup admin accounts that they still did not
show up in the User Accounts applet.

Obviously the User Accounts applet should only show all user accounts if a
user is logged in whose account is in the Administrators group. My user
account *is* in the Administrators group. It can't be that the User
Accounts applet doesn't show administrator accounts. My account is listed
and it is in the Administrators group. It seems the User Accounts applet
has been crippled for administrators since it doesn't list some of the
accounts.
 
W

Wesley Vogel

*Vanguard*;
[[ASP.NET runs its worker process (Aspnet_wp.exe) with a weak account (the
local machine account, which is named ASPNET)]]

It's the DotNet account
 
D

David Candy

Administrator is hidden as soon as another admin account is created. This is to stop people from using it.
 
V

*Vanguard*

"David Candy" said in news:[email protected]:
Administrator is hidden as soon as another admin account is created.
This is to stop people from using it.

Okay. And that's how I treat the Administrator account. I also created an
AdminBackup account (in the Administrator's group) as a backup admin
account. And my own account is in the administrator's group, too, and that
is the one I always use to login.

However, there are times when I want to copy the profile of one account atop
another. This is so when you log on the other account that it has the same
Start menu, desktop, and attributes of the first account from which you
copied its profile. I find this handy to copy my user account atop of the
Administrator account so when I eventually but seldom logon to the
Administrator account that it has the same setup as my own. Actually, you
can edit the registry to have multiple accounts point to the same profile
path; i.e., multiple accounts share the same profile. I actually did that
at one time but figured that if the profile got corrupted then I was screwed
for all accounts that shared that profile. So instead I now right-click on
My Computer, select Properties, Advanced, User Profiles settings, and select
my account and then browse to the Administrator's profile directory and
overwrite it (and also change permission on that copied profile directory to
be usable by the Administrator account so it can then use its own profile
that was copied from mine). While I can do this now for my account, I could
not, for example, select the Administrator account and copy its profile atop
AdminBackup. If I setup other admin accounts, it would be nice to use the
Administrator's profile as a template and copy it atop the new admin
accounts so they start out the same. But obviously now I cannot do that
since Administrator is no longer listed here.

The only caveat of copying profiles was to change the path of where is the
My Documents folder (and consequently have it also move the files). Since
My Documents is normally under your profile path, all your documents would
get copied when you copied the profile, and I don't want Administrator,
AdminBackup, or other admin accounts to have duplicates of my documents
under my account. If you don't relocate your My Documents folder (under a
path where then you change permissions to the appropriate user), and if you
have lots of documents, it can take a long time to copy your profile.

This is a case of Microsoft getting carried away with protecting its users.
Admin users should not be so restricted. If you shoot yourself in your foot
then you have no one to blame but yourself. You're supposed to know what
you're doing. Microsoft shouldn't be taking the power away from admin
accounts just because they are stupid in defaulting a user account to the
admin group. But that's just ranting about what they should do and the good
ol' days of Windows 2000 when this stupid overprotection didn't exist.

From what I can see in the current User Accounts applet in Windows XP,
everything I can do there can also be done in the Computer Management MMC
under the Users node, except maybe "Remove Password" (unless that's perhaps
just resetting your current password to blanks) and "Change Picture" which
mostly applies when you use the Welcome screen (which I am not) and the
picture shown in the User Accounts applet. It must've been under Windows
2000 that the User Accounts applet actually linked to some of the
functionality in the Computer Management MMC, namely to the Local Users and
Groups MMC (lusrmgr.msc).
 
D

David Candy

Use the domain user applet (as I thought you were - I'm sure you said domain somewhere).

Type in Start Run
control userpasswords2
To get the domain user applet while not using a domain.

Also pressing Ctrl + Alt + Delete twice at the welcome screen gives the traditional logon.
 
V

*Vanguard*

"David Candy" said in news:%[email protected]:
Use the domain user applet (as I thought you were - I'm sure you said
domain somewhere).

Type in Start Run
control userpasswords2
To get the domain user applet while not using a domain.

Also pressing Ctrl + Alt + Delete twice at the welcome screen gives
the traditional logon.

The only reference that I made to "domain" was that I wanted to use the same
login window (i.e., the standard Ctrl-Alt-Del one) that domain users would
see so that my interface on my computer would be the same and I would be
used to it. No point in getting used to an login interface that is
different depending on whether you are on a domain or in a workgroup. I'm
just in a workgroup as this was for a home computer.

Thanks for the heads up on using "control userpasswords2". I haven't
bothered using control.exe because (without parameters) it brings up the
goofy Windows XP version of Control Panel, the one in which it is much more
difficult to determine where are the applets except by trial and error in
guessing under which category they may be grouped. You can switch it to
Classic view which, to me, is the only way to use it. I searched at
http://support.microsoft.com/ to see if they listed the parameters usable
with control.exe but, alas, Microsoft doesn't have a KB article about it.
Since I cannot add it to the Control Panel, I've added a shortcut to it
under Administrative Tools. Thanks again.

Since I disabled the Welcome screen for login, I get the standard login
dialog. So I don't need to hit Ctrl+Alt+Del (twice) to get that dialog.
 
D

David Candy

The reference is in the programmers section.
The attached file adds tweakui to control panel. You can modify it.

control.exe desktop Launches the Display Properties window.
control.exe color Launches the Display Properties window with the Appearance tab preselected.
control.exe date/time Launches the Date and Time Properties window.
control.exe international Launches the Regional and Language Options window.
control.exe mouse Launches the Mouse Properties window.
control.exe keyboard Launches the Keyboard Properties window.
control.exe printers Displays the Printers and Faxes folder.
control.exe fonts Displays the Fonts folder.

For Windows 2000 and later systems:

control.exe folders Launches the Folder Options window.
control.exe netware Launches the Novell NetWare window (if installed).
control.exe telephony Launches the Phone and Modem Options window.
control.exe admintools Displays the Administrative Tools folder.
control.exe schedtasks Displays the Scheduled Tasks folder.
control.exe netconnections Displays the Network Connections folder.
control.exe infrared Launches the Infrared Monitor window (if installed).
control.exe userpasswords Launches the User Accounts window.
 
W

Wesley Vogel

*Vanguard*;

Start | Run | control | OK
Launches Control Panel in Classic View for me.

You do not have to type the .exe

Start | Run | control fonts | OK

Two David didn't list.

control sysdm.cpl Launches System Properties.
control sysdm.cpl,system,1 Launches System Properties with the Computer
Name tab showing.

I just discovered this. Stupeka!

control sysdm.cpl,system,2 Launches open @ second tab
control sysdm.cpl,system,3 Launches open @ third tab
control sysdm.cpl,system,6 Launches open @ last tab
 

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