Account help

[Guest]

Hello, my younger sister just recently decided that she would make a seperate
Windows account. Previously, we've always put everything we needed onto only
one account (the default admin account). Since we only use the one account
it always by-passes the "account sign in" page and goes straight to the
desktop. But when I turned on the computer today I noticed that it told me I
had to give the password to sign in to the "Ashley" account. I was like....
uh... ok, I don't want to sign into that account but that's the only account
available. The problem is that it appears that she made her account the admin
account and now all the stuff that was on the desktop of the old account is
seemingly gone. Does anyone know of a way to find the information and/or get
our old account back? I've tried all I can think of and have had no luck.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Nepatsfan]

(e-mail address removed),

Hello, my younger sister just recently decided that she
would make a seperate Windows account. Previously, we've
always put everything we needed onto only one account (the
default admin account). Since we only use the one account
it always by-passes the "account sign in" page and goes
straight to the desktop. But when I turned on the computer
today I noticed that it told me I had to give the password
to sign in to the "Ashley" account. I was like.... uh...
ok, I don't want to sign into that account but that's the
only account available. The problem is that it appears that
she made her account the admin account and now all the stuff
that was on the desktop of the old account is seemingly
gone. Does anyone know of a way to find the information
and/or get our old account back? I've tried all I can think
of and have had no luck. Any help would be greatly
appreciated. Thanks.

At the Welcome Screen (that's where you're being asked to
provide a password to sign on as Ashley) hit the Ctrl + Alt +
Del keys at the same time twice. This should bring up the Logon
to Windows dialog box. Enter Administrator as the User Name.
You should now be able to logon to the account you were using
previously.

Now that you've been able to access your old account, it's time
to do what you should have done in the first place. Namely,
create a new account for yourself and copy the information from
the Administrator account into the new account. Using the
built-in Administrator account for day to day activities is not
a good idea. The Administrator account should be reserved for
emergency use only.

Either of these procedures will allow you to copy the files
from the Administrator account into a new user account.

How do I copy a user profile in Windows XP?
http://www.petri.co.il/copy_user_profiles_in_windows_xp.htm

How to copy data from a corrupted user profile to a new profile
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/811151

You will have to use a third account which is a computer
administrator in order to copy the files. Create a temporary
admin account that can be deleted once the procedure is
completed. Also, make sure you logon at least once with your
new account before you try to copy files from the Administrator
account.

Good luck

Nepatsfan