Admin account suddenly dead...??

[Guest]

Hi

Something strange just happened and I do greatly appreciate some help

I usually log onto my Win2K SP4 computer as a User with administrator rights (since I do a lot of installing and customizing etc). I rarely use the Administrator account but it has always worked when I wanted to use it for some reason

However, today when I logged in to Administrator it is completely dead. I log in and after it having loaded the wallpaper BMP nothing else happens. No desktop icons appear. The explorer shell does not load it seems and the startmenu never appears. If I rightclick on the desktop nothing happens. Only by invoking task manager and choosing 'New activity: Run...' from the file menu can I get some activity. I can run PDF files and start Acrobat, notepad etc. But when trying to run explorer.exe in the same way nothing happens (after a few blinks by the harddrive activity led on the computer)

My usual user account with admin rights is working well.

What can be wrong? Is it possible to reinstall only the admin account in some way, without meddling in the rest of the system

Thankful for any help

/Peter

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Hi,

Something strange just happened and I do greatly appreciate some help.

I usually log onto my Win2K SP4 computer as a User with administrator

rights (since I do a lot of installing and customizing etc). I rarely use
the Administrator account but it has always worked when I wanted to use it
for some reason.

However, today when I logged in to Administrator it is completely dead. I

log in and after it having loaded the wallpaper BMP nothing else happens. No
desktop icons appear. The explorer shell does not load it seems and the
startmenu never appears. If I rightclick on the desktop nothing happens.
Only by invoking task manager and choosing 'New activity: Run...' from the
file menu can I get some activity. I can run PDF files and start Acrobat,
notepad etc. But when trying to run explorer.exe in the same way nothing
happens (after a few blinks by the harddrive activity led on the computer).

My usual user account with admin rights is working well.

What can be wrong? Is it possible to reinstall only the admin account in

some way, without meddling in the rest of the system?

Thankful for any help!

/Peter

Log on under some other account, then rename the administrator's profile
(c:\documents and settings\administrator). This will force a new profile to
be created when you next log on as administrator.

 

[Guest]

Hi

Thanks for your reply

I tried what you suggested but to no avail. There was some automatic recreation of the account (Windows sound came back on, wallpaper disappeared) but other wise nothing new. Still no icons on desktop and only through task manager can I initiate programs. When trying explorer.exe and simultaneously watching the process window, I can see 'Explorer.exe' appear in the windows only to disappear a second later

??

Should I maybe have deleted (rather than just rename) all the admin folders from the %Documentsand Settings folder

/

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Hi,

Thanks for your reply.

I tried what you suggested but to no avail. There was some automatic

recreation of the account (Windows sound came back on, wallpaper
disappeared) but other wise nothing new. Still no icons on desktop and only
through task manager can I initiate programs. When trying explorer.exe and
simultaneously watching the process window, I can see 'Explorer.exe' appear
in the windows only to disappear a second later.

???

Should I maybe have deleted (rather than just rename) all the admin

folders from the %Documentsand Settings folder?

/P

- You may have to restart the machine in order to unlock locked files.
- Perform the "rename" command from a Command Prompt so that you can see
what's going on.
- You can certainly delete the folder if you wish. I don't recommend it
because it might contain files that you do not wish to remove.

 

[Guest]

Hi

I did try to restart the computer as well (cold reboot). But no change.
When changing names n DOS mode no messages appeared
I also changed the name of the 'Default user' account and this time I got a Windows warnin saying that the admin account could not be found. I continued anyway hoping that this meant that a new clean Admin account would create itself, but while a new account was created it was no different from before. Still no desktop icons etc..

Does it matter that I a long time ago changed the name (inside control panel) of the admin account from the default 'Administrator' to 'admin' ? Though this I did several months ago and it has always worked. I only write 'admin' as login name but it's folder was still called Administrator. ?

Anythin else I can do to get the administrator account working again??

Thanks again

/p

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Hi,

I did try to restart the computer as well (cold reboot). But no change.
When changing names n DOS mode no messages appeared.
I also changed the name of the 'Default user' account and this time I got

a Windows warnin saying that the admin account could not be found. I
continued anyway hoping that this meant that a new clean Admin account would
create itself, but while a new account was created it was no different from
before. Still no desktop icons etc...

Does it matter that I a long time ago changed the name (inside control

panel) of the admin account from the default 'Administrator' to 'admin' ?
Though this I did several months ago and it has always worked. I only write
'admin' as login name but it's folder was still called Administrator. ??

Anythin else I can do to get the administrator account working again???

Thanks again!

/p

Don't rename the "Default User" folder - it is the source folder from which
all new accounts are built!

It seems there is need to take this in small, logical steps:

1. Reboot the PC.
2. Log on under and account other than the "Admin" account.
3. Start a Command Prompt.
4. Navigate into "c:\documents and settings".
5. Issue this command: attrib /d /s h- adm*.*
6. Check what folders you have, "Administrator" or "Admin".
7. Rename all admin profile folders to something else.
8. Make sure there are no admin folders left.
9. Make sure that you do have a "Default User" folder.
10. Log off.
11. Log on as admin. You will get a brand-new admin folder.

If this does not work, create a brand new account, then log on under this
new account to check if the problem persists.

 

[Guest]

Hi again

I did everything in your last mail like you said and still no good

However, afterwards I found an image file of c: from a month ago so I renamed all faulty admin accounts as well as the default user account and then restored the more or less original Administrator folder and the original default user folder. then I rebooted and logged on as 'admin' (not 'Administrator'!) as I used to before. This seems to have done, if not *the* trick, so at least some trick. A new admin account was created and now I get a complete new setup with explorer, and startmenus working etc

1) Only one thing, I wonder if this is a fullgood administrator account? It really starts from scratch with setting up IE dial up etc. Previously when I logged on as 'admin' I had no folder named admin, only the one named Administrator (which was the name of the original-install administrator login before I changed it to 'admin'). Now there was a folder created named 'admin'. So my guess is that I am not really back to where I was before, but rather to a working new configuration. Only, since I do not know everything about the quirks and functions of the W2K administrator account I cannot judge whether this new one is as good as the old one. Do you think it is

2) Can I delete all the other admin folders, including the restored from image Administrator one (since there was a new 'admin' one created)

3) Since I am running my regular user account with administrator privileges, is there really any use having an administrator account at all

Thank you for all help

/peter