All logins are disabled - Please help!

[Don]

I'm working on a friend's computer and he has managed to disable all user accounts, including "administrator". How do I get control again so I can enable administrator?

Thanks,
Don

 

[John John - MVP]

I'm working on a friend's computer and he has managed to disable all
user accounts, including "administrator". How do I get control again
so I can enable administrator?

Login to Safe-Mode with the built-in Administrator account.

John

 

[Pegasus [MVP]]

I'm working on a friend's computer and he has managed to disable all user
accounts, including "administrator". How do I get control again so I can
enable administrator?

Thanks,
Don

When you boot the machine with a Nordahl boot CD
(http://pogostick.net/~pnh/ntpasswd/) then resetting the administrator's
password will also enable it.

 

[PA Bear [MS MVP]]

What anti-virus application or security suite is installed and is your
subscription current? What anti-spyware applications (other than Defender)?
What third-party firewall (if any)?

Has a(another) Norton or McAfee application ever been installed on the
computer (e.g., a free-trial version that came preinstalled when you bought
it)?

 

[Don]

Login to Safe-Mode with the built-in Administrator account.

John

All accounts are disabled, including the "administrator" account. How do I deal with this?

Don

 

[Daave]

All accounts are disabled, including the "administrator" account.
How do I deal with this?

The very first thing you need to do to deal with this is to copy all
your data to an external hard drive. You could either remove the hard
drive or boot off something like UBCD4Win or Ubuntu.

Then perhaps you can use a rescue disk like the ones mentioned here to
scan for malware:

http://www.techmixer.com/free-bootable-antivirus-rescue-cds-download-list/

What do you mean that the accounts are "disabled"? What exactly happens?
Have you used Safe Mode?

 

[John John - MVP]

All accounts are disabled, including the "administrator" account. How do I deal with this?

On Windows XP the built-in Administrator account is *always* available
and able to logon to the Recovery Console or to Safe Mode...even if it
is disabled, the system will enable it to allow access via these two
methods.

John

 

[Don]

On Windows XP the built-in Administrator account is *always* available
and able to logon to the Recovery Console or to Safe Mode...even if it
is disabled, the system will enable it to allow access via these two
methods.

John

Thanks John and the others for your help. John, how do I get to safe mode? I thought I tried every way I know and couldn't get there.

Don

 

[John John - MVP]

Thanks John and the others for your help. John, how do I get to safe
mode? I thought I tried every way I know and couldn't get there.

Press or tap the F8 key when the computer is booting up, press it before
Windows starts to load, just after the BIOS POST routine. When at the
Advanced boot options screen select Safe Mode and when presented with
the logon screen enter Administrator in the logon box and enter the
password... which might be your second hurdle, you need to know the
password for the account. If you don't know the password often times
the password is just left blank, press <Enter> and see if you can logon.
If you cannot get around the password then use the tool suggested by
Pegasus to get around the problem.

John

 

[Don]

Press or tap the F8 key when the computer is booting up, press it before
Windows starts to load, just after the BIOS POST routine. When at the
Advanced boot options screen select Safe Mode and when presented with
the logon screen enter Administrator in the logon box and enter the
password... which might be your second hurdle, you need to know the
password for the account. If you don't know the password often times
the password is just left blank, press <Enter> and see if you can logon.
If you cannot get around the password then use the tool suggested by
Pegasus to get around the problem.

John

Thanks, John and others. I'll try this tonight. I'm not at that
computer right now.

Thanks agan,
Don

 

[Don]

I'm working on a friend's computer and he has managed to disable all user accounts, including "administrator". How do I get control again so I can enable administrator?

Thanks,
Don

Got it working thanks to all of you guys. Thanks much!!!

Don

 

[John John - MVP]

Got it working thanks to all of you guys. Thanks much!!!

You're welcome.

John

 

[HeyBub]

Got it working thanks to all of you guys. Thanks much!!!

Don

I trust you've learned a valuable lesson about "working on a friend's
computer..."

 

[Nil]

Got it working thanks to all of you guys. Thanks much!!!

It would have been considerate of you to describe how you resolved the
problem so other people could take advantage of the help you received
here.