Please help, no administrator access!

[Nicholas Hanson]

I was led to believe that if you remove your user account from the
Administrators group UAC would prompt you when Administrator rights were
needed and you could supply the Administrator password to do what you like.
In XP when you move your user account out of the Administrators group (I ran
as a Power User in XP) it would automatically activate the built-in
Administrator account. In Vista this does not seem to occur and so when I
removed my account from the Administrators group the only account remaining
is the still-disabled Administrator account. With no admin rights I can't
add myself back to that group, I can't enable the Administrator account,
etc.
When I try to do something that requires admin rights UAC gives me a dialog
to enter the password for an Administrator but that dialog is sometimes
blank and sometimes contains my regular user account (I've not determined a
pattern yet). When it does contain my regular user account if I enter my
password it goes away as if it accepted it but the action does NOT execute
with administrator rights.
I'm at a loss of what to do at this point., any help would be greatly
appreciated.

 

[Malke]

I was led to believe that if you remove your user account from the
Administrators group UAC would prompt you when Administrator rights were
needed and you could supply the Administrator password to do what you
like. In XP when you move your user account out of the Administrators
group (I ran as a Power User in XP) it would automatically activate the
built-in
Administrator account. In Vista this does not seem to occur and so when I
removed my account from the Administrators group the only account
remaining
is the still-disabled Administrator account. With no admin rights I can't
add myself back to that group, I can't enable the Administrator account,
etc.
When I try to do something that requires admin rights UAC gives me a
dialog to enter the password for an Administrator but that dialog is
sometimes blank and sometimes contains my regular user account (I've not
determined a
pattern yet). When it does contain my regular user account if I enter my
password it goes away as if it accepted it but the action does NOT execute
with administrator rights.
I'm at a loss of what to do at this point., any help would be greatly
appreciated.

As you have discovered, the built-in Administrator account is disabled by
default in Vista. When you get out of this situation, create a Standard
user for your daily work and at least one extra administrator user - call
it CompAdmin or Tech or the like - for elevation and emergencies. In the
meantime, you can try MVP Jimmy Brush's method of recovery.

Tutorial and fix -
http://www.jimmah.com/vista/Administration/locked_out_of_admin.aspx

Malke

 

[Nicholas Hanson]

Rebooting to safe mode solved it for me. In safe mode the Administrator
option was enabled so it allowed me to log in and create and new account
with admin rights that I can use when necessary.

 

[FromTheRafters]

Vista was designed to enable the full token administrator account
and make it available in safe mode whenever the last of the other
administrator accounts is removed or demoted.

Unfortunately, it is still possible for a user to inadvertantly shift the
administrator privilege to the ASP.NET account and remove or
demote all the others - leaving them with an administrator account
they can't log into.

Locked your keys in the car again eh?

No doubt there are "slim jim" programs out there - or at least a
'coathanger' program bent just right. )

....or as Malke would be likely (and rightly) to suggest - a spare set
of keys in the form of another administrator account just in case.

Rebooting to safe mode solved it for me. In safe mode the Administrator
option was enabled so it allowed me to log in and create and new account
with admin rights that I can use when necessary.

 

[FromTheRafters]

Another similar method uses utilman.exe in the same manner.
At the login screen the Windows key + U brings up the shell.