No administrator

[Guest]

When I gave my older computer to my daughter, I changed the user name from
mine to hers and changed the type from administrator to limited, intending to
add another user as administrator. (OK, I realized afterwards that I should
have done that first.) Now I have no administrator and can't do something as
simple as renewing my subscription to Norton.

Any suggestions on how to change it back or add an administrator? It
appears that my only options are to reformat & reinstall Windows XP. (It
seems that some people's advice to reinstall Windows XP over the existing
leads to drivers freezing, etc.

Thanks for your assistance!

 

[Guest]

Boot to Safe Mode by hitting F8 when the PC starts/Windows Starts. Choose
"Safe Mode", and then, in XP, you should see in XP Welcome Screen the
"Administrator" Acct. Click that, enter your admin pass (if there is one,
the default, I think is windows), then add an Admin acct through there.

BMR777

 

[Guest]

Thanks for your help!

I did what you instructed. When I booted up in safe mode, fortunately there
were a few administrator accounts identified and I added one new one;
however, the limited account that I'm aware of (Lauren) did not appear. When
I rebooted in normal mode, and cilcked control panel/users, only one
account/user (Lauren) appeared; none of the administrator accounts appeared
and I only had a few options about what to do with the limited account. When
I tried to switch users by logging off, the option to "switch users" does not
appear; the only option that I have is to log off.

Any suggestions?

 

[Guest]

I figured out how to get all users to appear in the user account screen and
to get "switch user" back when I click "log off." Thank you! You are a
lifesaver!!

 

[Dick Ballard]

Could you please explain, for the rest of us, what it is that you
"figured out"? I don't need to do this right now, but who knows,
sometime down the road.........I've done stranger things.

Dick Ballard
(e-mail address removed)

 

[Guest]

I need explanation also...I actually couldn't get the default "windows" to
work under the Administrator login - I do not know the Administrator
password, is there any way I can get into this?