Multiple Administrator folders created?

[John Smith]

I have an IBM Thinkpad A31p that came with preinstalled Windows 2000. A
couple of months ago the hard disk had to be replaced and I had to use the
IBM Recovery CD to reinstall the OS and utilities. I'm up to date with
Windows Update (i.e., SP4).

Since reinstalling, I've had a number of problems that I hadn't had before,
one of which is:

For some reason, Windows is creating multiple Administrator folders under
C:\Documents and Settings, although I am not logged in as Administrator (I
am logged in as "John" with Administrator rights). These extra folders take
the name Administrator.WORKGROUP (not the real name of my workgroup), then
Administrator.WORKGROUP.000, Administrator.WORKGROUP.001 etc. In a few cases
the folders are empty, but most of them have the standard set of subfolders
(e.g., My Documents, Send to etc etc).

I have to manually delete these folders every couple of days or they would
overwhelm my hard disk. Why is Win2k doing this and how can I make it stop??

 

[Jerold Schulman]

I have an IBM Thinkpad A31p that came with preinstalled Windows 2000. A
couple of months ago the hard disk had to be replaced and I had to use the
IBM Recovery CD to reinstall the OS and utilities. I'm up to date with
Windows Update (i.e., SP4).

Since reinstalling, I've had a number of problems that I hadn't had before,
one of which is:

For some reason, Windows is creating multiple Administrator folders under
C:\Documents and Settings, although I am not logged in as Administrator (I
am logged in as "John" with Administrator rights). These extra folders take
the name Administrator.WORKGROUP (not the real name of my workgroup), then
Administrator.WORKGROUP.000, Administrator.WORKGROUP.001 etc. In a few cases
the folders are empty, but most of them have the standard set of subfolders
(e.g., My Documents, Send to etc etc).

I have to manually delete these folders every couple of days or they would
overwhelm my hard disk. Why is Win2k doing this and how can I make it stop??

The problem sounds similar to tip 4631 in the 'Tips & Tricks' at
http://www.jsiinc.com



Jerold Schulman
Windows: General MVP
JSI, Inc.
http://www.jsiinc.com

 

[John Smith]

Thanks for the reply. My situation does sound a lot like your tip 4631 but I
can't make the tip work.

I am user "John" and I have Administrator permissions, but it's the
Administrator account that's giving me trouble. I've gone through the
registry and changed ProfileImagePath from Administrator.COMPUTERNAME.002 to
Adminstrator, then deleted the bad profile folders.

When I restart and log back on, more bad folders are recreated.

 

[Jay Somerset]

Hve you tried going is as "John" and removing the false users from Control
Panel | Users? Just removing their ProfileImagePath entries may not be
sufficient. The folders will still have to be deleted manually.

Thanks for the reply. My situation does sound a lot like your tip 4631 but I
can't make the tip work.

I am user "John" and I have Administrator permissions, but it's the
Administrator account that's giving me trouble. I've gone through the
registry and changed ProfileImagePath from Administrator.COMPUTERNAME.002 to
Adminstrator, then deleted the bad profile folders.

When I restart and log back on, more bad folders are recreated.

 

[John Smith]

Unfortunately, the "false user" is Administrator. The bad folders being
created are Adminstrator.COMPUTERNAME, Administrator. COMPUTERNAME.000,
Adminstrator.COMPUTERNAME.001 etc.

Hve you tried going is as "John" and removing the false users from Control
Panel | Users? Just removing their ProfileImagePath entries may not be
sufficient. The folders will still have to be deleted manually.

 

[Jay Somerset]

Can you not delete the user "Administrator"? You have admin rights, so you
should be abvle to do this. What i can't tell from your posts (I may just
have missed it) is whether there are multiple "Administrator.xxx" users
visible when you use the User/Passwords control panel applet.

I would get rid of any user with named Administrator, either in whole or in
part.

 

[John Smith]

What i can't tell from your posts (I may just

have missed it) is whether there are multiple "Administrator.xxx" users
visible when you use the User/Passwords control panel applet.

There are NOT multiple "Administrator.COMPUTERNAME.xxx" accounts visible in
Control Panel/Users and Passwords. Just two members of the Administrators
group show there: John and Administrator. There are only multiple folders
being created in C:\Documents and Settings. In addition to an
"Administrator" folder, there are also "Administrator.COMPUTERNAME",
"Administrator.COMPUTERNAME.000", and so forth. I've been deleting these
folders every few days without apparent adverse effect.

Can you not delete the user "Administrator"? You have admin rights, so you
should be abvle to do this...

I would get rid of any user with named Administrator, either in whole or in
part.

Uh... I had no idea I could delete the Adminstrator account! I thought the
built-in Administrator account was not to be fooled with -- let alone
deleted -- on any... er, account.

My extremely limited understanding of Win2K (and NT & XPPro) is (was?) that
the built-in Administrator acct serves as a sort of template on which all
other user accounts are built, and you then subtract permissions by making
new accounts members of Power Users or Users, etc.

So are you saying that I can log in as John (member of Administrators
group), delete Administrator, and then make a new account named
Administrator?

Actually (light bulb on), I'm guessing there doesn't even NEED to be an
account named Adminstrator... right? Although it would be a really good idea
to have a fallback account to fix things, yes?

I'm also hearing that it's not a good idea for your main user account to
have Administrator privileges... what's the thinking behind that?

 

[Jay Somerset]

I'm pretty sure that you can delete "Administrator" without any risk, as
long as you have another active account with administrator priviledges. You
can then recreate "Administrator" after cleaning up all the funny folders,
(after at least a couple of reboots).

Perhaps someone else can corrobarate this.