administrator account

[Guest]

Some time ago I added a new user (call it George) and granted Administrator
rights. I am now attempting to remove that account, but I cannot because it
is the "only administrator account" on the computer. THE "Administrator"
account does NOT appear to have admin. rights... And the George account
cannot "see" the Administratir account to grant admin rights...

Help?

 

[Malke]

Some time ago I added a new user (call it George) and granted
Administrator
rights. I am now attempting to remove that account, but I cannot
because it
is the "only administrator account" on the computer. THE
"Administrator"
account does NOT appear to have admin. rights... And the George
account cannot "see" the Administratir account to grant admin
rights...

Help?

Are you sure you didn't just *rename* the Administrator account to
"George"? Bad idea, of course. In any case, if you have XP Home, try
going to Safe Mode (repeatedly tap the F8 key as the computer is
starting up) which should show you to normally hidden Administrator
account. Log in - the default password is a blank - and go to the User
Accounts applet in Control Panel. You can create a new account and/or
assign proper rights to extant accounts.

If you did mess up the Administrator account, then log in as George and
create new user accounts with administrative rights. Then log out and
log in again with one of the new accounts. Then you will be able to
delete the George account from the User Accounts applet.

Malke

 

[Guest]

Dave-

I suspect you are running XP Pro and not Home...?
(I don't _know_ if the following is true for XP-Home as it is for Pro, but
suspect it is...)
1st: believe me, The Administrator Account is still there even if you can't
"see it" on the Welcome screen. While AT the Welcome Screen, CTRL+ALT+DEL
twice will bring up the NT-classic login dialog and in there you can enter
"Administrator" for the account name and password below it to login as The
Administrator. Here are some related articles:
Original Administrator Account Does Not Appear During Friendly Logon Method
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;281992&Product=winxp

Enable Administrator account on Welcome Screen
http://www.dougknox.com/xp/scripts_desc/xp_admin_ok.htm

[Courtesy of MS-MVP Doug Knox]


Also, XP **REQUIRES** that there be at least two accounts - at all times -
that have administrator priviledges: The Administrator account, plus one
other owner/user-created account.

Since you created "George" as an administrator acct, XP was happy, life was
good.
But now you want to take "George" away and kill him. XP won't let you have
him, "George" belongs to XP.
So... you have a few options:
1) Create a new account, "Jane" and make it a member of the Administrators
group, then you can remove "George"
2) Log on as The Administrator and lockout "George" if all you want to do is
prohibit access to your computer via the "George" account (to do this,
Rt-click My Computer, select Manage, expand [the + sign] Local Users and
Groups, click on Users, dbl-click "George" tick the bottom box Account
Disabled and click OK). \this hoowever, will not remove "George"s profile
data or anything, just disable the account from being used.