Please Help - Computer Rebooting in Different Account, not the default Administrator anymore

[Dereck L. Dietz]

Please help.

I've been experiencing a problem for almost a month now. A month ago I had
to update my Norton's anti-virus subscription but Norton's forced me to
upgrade my software. While I was downloading and installing it something
got on my computer. Norton wouldn't/couldn't remove it but told me where it
was and I was finally able to find it and delete the file in a temporary
local server (service?) directory.

Now my problem with Norton's started. It wouldn't let me do a LiveUpdate
saying I had an invalid administrator account. I also noticed that when I
put CDs in my drives the autostart wouldn't work. Then, after one Norton
update my computer rebooted and, instead of rebooting into the Administrator
account (which is the only account I've had on the computer since I bought
it nearly 4 years ago) booted up into a backup admin account I created after
my Norton problem started.

I was only able to get my Administrator settings and desktop back by doing a
System Restore.

Then today I had to reboot my computer and once again it booted up into the
backup admin account and not the Administrator account that came with the
computer. I didn't get a screen asking what account I wanted to boot up
into or anything.

Everything on this computer is under the Administrator account. I don't
share it with anybody so I just let it boot up without a password.

Can someone - anyone - PLEASE help? I'm at a loss as to what's going on and
if I ever lose my System Restore I'm completely hosed since I won't be able
to get my desktop back.

Thanks.

 

[Guest]

Please help.

I've been experiencing a problem for almost a month now. A month ago I had
to update my Norton's anti-virus subscription but Norton's forced me to
upgrade my software. While I was downloading and installing it something
got on my computer. Norton wouldn't/couldn't remove it but told me where it
was and I was finally able to find it and delete the file in a temporary
local server (service?) directory.

Now my problem with Norton's started. It wouldn't let me do a LiveUpdate
saying I had an invalid administrator account. I also noticed that when I
put CDs in my drives the autostart wouldn't work. Then, after one Norton
update my computer rebooted and, instead of rebooting into the Administrator
account (which is the only account I've had on the computer since I bought
it nearly 4 years ago) booted up into a backup admin account I created after
my Norton problem started.

I was only able to get my Administrator settings and desktop back by doing a
System Restore.

Then today I had to reboot my computer and once again it booted up into the
backup admin account and not the Administrator account that came with the
computer. I didn't get a screen asking what account I wanted to boot up
into or anything.

Everything on this computer is under the Administrator account. I don't
share it with anybody so I just let it boot up without a password.

Can someone - anyone - PLEASE help? I'm at a loss as to what's going on and
if I ever lose my System Restore I'm completely hosed since I won't be able
to get my desktop back.

Thanks.

Hi Dereck, first I need to tell you I am not an expert nor an IT
Professional. I read your post however and wanted to share my experiance with
Norton. I had a simular problem when I bought a new computer a year and half
ago. It came with Norton Pre-installed on.

After about four weeks the Live Update failed and Norton told me to do
manual updates. I thought it odd as the Live Update is a part of the program
and I paid good money for the subscription. Anyway, during the hemming and
hawing about what they should/could/would/wouldn't do, they tried to get me
to buy a Help Desk from them for "future" problems. I thought that odd too,
as I was under the impression free tech help came with the subscription.

Well, I already had a Dell Help Desk at the time, (Now called Dell On-Call
and not anywhere near as good) and Dell had told me not to buy another Help
Desk as my contract covered any situation large or small, including any
software program on my system 24/7, so I told Norton no thanks and hung up.
The very next day, mind you only four weeks after I bought this and it was
not networked with any other machine, I somehow received such a huge and
destructive virus it wiped my computer AND the Dell Re-Imaging program which
is used in cases of emergency, like that one, and is used in place of wiping
the hard drive, reformatting, and doing a clean re-install of Windows. So, it
was huge.

During the time spent "fixing" the system as best we could, Dell instructed
me to go out and buy a different Security Solution. I was already suspicous
of what had occurred, but this raised the question of whether or not Norton
may have had anything to do with the virus. By the way, the virus knew to
hide out in the Re-Imaging software which was in a protected partiion of the
drive, and when I went first booted up after we had re-installed Windows
Norton's Live Update kept popping up a notice I needed to do an immediant
update. When I tried the manual process as Norton had intructed, the virus
suddenly reapeared and wiped me out again. No kidding.

I then went to the office supply store to purchase a new Internet Suite.
Delll had reccomended McAfee so I was looking. The salesman came up and asked
if he could help, saw what I was looking at, and HE told ME what had occurred
with Norton, exactly to the letter, from Live Update failing, trying to get
me to buy the help desk, and my computer crashing that day or the next. I was
shocked to say the least. I was a very new computer user at the time, but it
was too suspicious and I had been thinking Norton had done something. I was
not browsing nor online more than four weeks, had not opened any e-mail
(didn't have any except my hello from SBC, my ISP at the time.) nor
downloaded any programs, or files of any sort. The virus was so huge you
would have thought it would have been on the news not just on my little ol'
system.

Well, thats my story. Now for one last thing: YOu shoudn't be using your
built in administrator account for your regular use. You should only use it
in case of emergency. Also, you shouldn't use an administrator account you
create on a daily basis either, but rather use a limited account for normal
use and only use an administrator account when absolutely needed. If a trojan
or other malware gets into your system it is limited only to the rights and
prevleges the account you are using at the time has. An administrator account
has full access, with the built in administrator account even more access to
hidden OS files and executables, DLLs and other vital componants. I strongly
reccomend once you have this fixed you create two new accounts, one
administrator account and one limited account and password protect them both.
Use the limited account for the largest portion of your needs and use the
created administrator account for things like downloads, installing programs
and administrative needs like network needs, disk checks, quotas,
defragmentations, running full scans etc.

I also stronly reccomend you rename your built in administrotor account and
place a very strong password on it. Every cracker knows about the built in
admin account and goes after it. If it sits there with the name
"administrator" and has no passowrd which is the default in a new install,
then it is easy to gain access to it. Even with just the name, that is half
of what is needed to crack it.

Anyway, sorry to go on, but I was a bit alarmed when I read you were using
the built in admin account for your daily work. I also wanted to tell you my
experiance with Norton. I use a really good solution now which I am very
pleased with.

Good luck and have a very nice holliday season,

Seree