Supervisor Account Corruption?

[Stewart]

Operating System:

Windows XP Home Edition w/ all current updates.

I originally posted a question about receiving the
following error message when attempting to set a password
for a scheduled task:

"0x8007007a: The data area passed to a system call is
too small."

The only feedback I received was to make sure the account
had admin privs but this was already the case.

I then attempted to change the account type to limited
for this account and it would not allow me to do this.
In the past I have done this and XP simply prompts the
user to select which profile to be used when logging in.
Since the account type could not be changed I started to
think that something was corrupted.

I then attempted to login using the Administrator account
and received the following error:

"Unable to log you on because of an account restriction".

Finally, I checked user profiles under System Properties
and there was an entry named "Unknown:.

I'm at a loss and would appreciate some feedback and/or
suggestions.

Thanks.

 

[Todd Shillam]

Stewart,

Regarding your 'Unknown' user profile, I've seen this quite a bit myself.
It appears the profile has been corrupted--this can even include the
'administrator' profile at times. To correct the problem, I've always
deleted the unknown profile and logged on as the respective user--Windows
recreates the user profile to include it's correct name afterwards. Just
keep in mind, there might be documents in that 'unknown' user profile. You
should check the profiles under C:\Documents and Settings\%USERPROFILE% just
to make sure.

Otherwise, I'm a little confused here--are you able to logon locally using a
user account that is part of the administrator group?

Respectfully,

Todd


Operating System:

Windows XP Home Edition w/ all current updates.

I originally posted a question about receiving the
following error message when attempting to set a password
for a scheduled task:

"0x8007007a: The data area passed to a system call is
too small."

The only feedback I received was to make sure the account
had admin privs but this was already the case.

I then attempted to change the account type to limited
for this account and it would not allow me to do this.
In the past I have done this and XP simply prompts the
user to select which profile to be used when logging in.
Since the account type could not be changed I started to
think that something was corrupted.

I then attempted to login using the Administrator account
and received the following error:

"Unable to log you on because of an account restriction".

Finally, I checked user profiles under System Properties
and there was an entry named "Unknown:.

I'm at a loss and would appreciate some feedback and/or
suggestions.

Thanks.

 

[Kent W. England [MVP]]

This can happen if you run "control userpasswords2" and change the
account from an admin or user (limited account) to some other account
type that Home Edition doesn't support. XP Home Edition can get confused
and disable the account. This User Accounts control panel is left-over
from Windows 2000 and should not be used. You can use TweakUI to setup
auto-logon and you should not use the Win2K User Accounts control panel
to manage user accounts. Use the XP version.

If this is what you did, then run "control userpasswords2" and set the
account back to what it was. If you don't know what I am talking about,
then ignore this advice.

 

[Stewart]

Todd,

I had tried deleting the profile and logging in as
administrator but still received the same error.

I can login using any user created account that has admin
privs. However, I cannot execute scheduled tasks with the
same accounts and I think this is somehow related to the
issues i am seeing with the supervisor account.

Any additional suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks
for the reply.

 

[Stewart]

Kent,

This did not apply to my situation but I ran the utility
you referenced just to verify that the account was setup
properly. It is interesting that the supervisor
account/profile is not displayed when running "User
Accounts" under control panel but it was displayed when
running this utility.

Anyway, thanks for the reply and any other suggestions
would be appreciated.

Thanks.