Hi
It's probably not working because you didn't delete your admin account, you
just hid it. Apparently when you boot to safe mode, the system is detecting
that admin account, even though it is hidden. This is why the built-in admin
account is not showing up there.
I agree, there should be some way around this, but I haven't found the magic
key yet?
I have been doing some extensive testing on this issue, for another user who
was in a similar situation, the only difference was that his admin account
was lost or corrupted somehow when performing an upgrade from Home Basic to
Home Premium. Even though he lost his only admin account, the built-in admin
account would not show up in Safe Mode?
I have tried to recreate this scenario using all 4 consumer versions of
Vista and have not been able to do it, so far?
The last admin account does not offer any way to either change the type of
account to Standard User or delete the account, in the user interface. I
have been able to delete the last admin account at a command prompt, using
the net user <accountname> /delete command. This can be accomplished when
logged into a Standard Account and elevating the command prompt, using the
about to be deleted, admin accounts privileges or, it will even work if you
are actually logged in with that admin account since the actual delete does
not take place until a log off occurs.
In all versions, when the last admin account is deleted and the system is
booted into Safe Mode, the built-in admin account is available for logon.
Having UAC on or off prior to deleting the last admin account does not alter
this behavior.
The only thing I haven't tried yet is booting with the installation disk and
trying to reveal the built-in admin account with the net user administrator
/active:yes command. But that's next.
Though the problem with this is
that not everyone has an installation disk.