Admin Accounts Locked Out

J

John Thomas

OK, I have a Windows XP Pro machine at home (workgroup)
that I set up user accounts for my wife and 3 kids. We
use the Welcome screen for everyone to login and only my
wife and I are Administrators, plus the Admin account.
This morning, my wife turned on the computer, logged in
and checked her email and then logged out. Later this
morning when I went to use the computer, my User account
was not displayed and the Admin account was locked out.
When I tried the control-alt-delete to bring ou th elogin
window and then tried to login under my account, the
message was that my account was locked out. When my wife
then went to login to her account so I could go into
Admin Tools and uncheck account lock out on my account,
the computer now has locked out my wife's account. In
other words, all admin accounts have been locked out and
the kids limited accounts are not. Anyone have any
suggestions what's going on and how to fix this?
Appreciate your help.

John
 
J

John Thomas

Thanks Bobby. I read the knowledge base article, but I
think I still have a dilema because I can't login under
any account with administrative privileges. All admin
accounts are locked out. In talking with my fellow IT
coworkers, their suggestioning that my PC was attacked
and that the accounts are locked out as a result of a
hacker tool trying toi crack my passwords(I have a
wireless connection to my ISP). Obviously, XP's firewall
isn't much good and if I get back into my system, then I
will reinstall Sygate or Kerios firewall again. I am also
told that there's a utility that I can use that will
recover the SAM info from my machine (linux based?), but
I'm not a IT whiz to know where to find it and how to use
it. Any other suggestions?

John
 
S

Steven L Umbach

The XP firewall if enabled in default configuration would prevent a hacker from
cracking your password from the internet. However an email attachment or other
download could have placed a worm/trojan on your computer some of which can take
control of your computer if administrator passwords are weak or null. An up to date
antivirus with autoprotect enabled probably could have prevented such. If you gain
control of your computer, be sure run a virus and trojan scan and take steps to
resecure. See tips below from Karl's FAQ. --- Steve

http://securityadmin.info/faq.asp#password
http://securityadmin.info/faq.asp#virustoc
http://www.microsoft.com/security/protect/
 
T

Torgeir Bakken (MVP)

John said:
OK, I have a Windows XP Pro machine at home (workgroup)
that I set up user accounts for my wife and 3 kids. We
use the Welcome screen for everyone to login and only my
wife and I are Administrators, plus the Admin account.
This morning, my wife turned on the computer, logged in
and checked her email and then logged out. Later this
morning when I went to use the computer, my User account
was not displayed and the Admin account was locked out.

Hi

The user "Administrator" can't really be locked out (but it can be disabled).


How to Log On to Windows XP If You Forget Your Password or Your Password
Expires
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;321305


If that doesn't work out, you might try to reset the local Administrator
password with one of the methods mentioned here:

http://securityadmin.info/faq.htm#password
 
A

aljack

Try this

Step 1
=======
1. Log on as the administrator account.
2. Press ctrl-alt-del, and select task manager.
3. Select process tab, in the process list, highlight sysu.exe and click End
Process. The rest of the programs shall be loaded.

Step 2
=======
Click Start, Click Control Panel, select "Switch to Classic View" and double
click "Add or Remove Programs", look for "Internet Optimizer", and click
Remove. (You can also directly remove the files under the folder C:\Program
Files\ddm\)

Step 3
=======
1. Click Start, Click Run, type "regedit" (without quotation mark), and
press enter.
2. In the left pane, locate the following key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
In the right pane delete the value named: "sysu.exe"

If the problem persists after performing step1 through step 3, please
perform the following steps to further troubleshoot the issue:

Please start the computer in the Safe Mode:
1. Restart the computer.
2. Keep press F8 key until the Windows Startup menu appears.
3. Choose the Safe Mode, and press Enter.
4. Use Administrator to log on the computer.

Please perform a clean boot in safe mode:
1. Click Start, and then click Run.
2. In the Open text box, type MSCONFIG then click OK.
3. On the System Configuration Utility window, click the Startup tab and
click the "Disable All" button to remove the checkmarks from each line in
the list.
4. Then, click the Services tab, add a checkmark to the "Hide All Microsoft
Services" item then click "Disable All".
Note: This disables all third party service items.
5. Click the OK button and restart your computer when you are prompted.
6. Then log on as Administrator in normal mode to test if the problem
exists.

Al
 

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