Unknown User in User Profiles?

[Moxieman]

Running XP Home, SP3.

Control Panel > System >Advanced >User Profiles shows 3 users. Two I created, and another, Account Unknown which I did not create.

1. Does this mean my computer has been compromised?

2. Can I delete it?

Firewall is always on, antivirus shows no problems. Updates are in place.

It does not show up in Control Panel >User Accounts. There, it shows the two
active accounts and says "Guest Account is off."

Thanks in advance,

Moxieman

 

[JS]

What's this user's account name?

JS

Running XP Home, SP3.


1. Does this mean my computer has been compromised?

2. Can I delete it?

Firewall is always on, antivirus shows no problems. Updates are in place.

It does not show up in Control Panel >User Accounts. There, it shows the
two
active accounts and says "Guest Account is off."

Thanks in advance,

Moxieman

 

[Nepatsfan]

Running XP Home, SP3.


1. Does this mean my computer has been compromised?

2. Can I delete it?

Firewall is always on, antivirus shows no problems. Updates are in place.

It does not show up in Control Panel >User Accounts. There, it shows the two
active accounts and says "Guest Account is off."

Thanks in advance,

Moxieman

I think you'll find that the cause of this problem is far less sinister than
your computer being compromised. As for whether you can delete the entry for
Account Unknown, you might want to do a little detective work first.

Take a look in this folder, C:\Documents and Settings. If you see any of the
following folders, that's normal. These folders are created by Windows and
should never be deleted.

All Users
Default User
LocalService
NetworkService

Note: If you don't see any of the above named folders it simply means you
haven't made any changes to the default settings in the Folder Options applet in
Control Panel. These are hidden and system folders and would not be visible
unless you made the appropriate changes in Folder Options.

It's also possible that you will find a folder named Administrator. Every
computer running XP has a built-in account named Administrator. In XP Home
Edition, you would need to boot into Safe mode in order to log in with this
account. Once again, this would be normal. Note: If you've never booted into
Safe mode and logged on as Administrator, this folder won't be present.

The remaining folders should have names identical to the user accounts you
created. Is there a folder with a name you don't recognize? If so, that folder
was belongs to the user who now shows up as Account Unknown. This can happen
when a user account is deleted through a method other than the User Account
applet in Control Panel.

Good luck

Nepatsfan

 

[Moxieman]

I see those folders and I also have the Administrator account. Any other user
account was deleted using the account deletion under Users in the Control
panel. There are no other user account names or folders under Documents and
settings that I cannot account for.

Can I delete this user account? How did it get onto my computer?

 

[Nepatsfan]

Go to Start -> Run and enter cmd.exe in the Open box.
In the command prompt window, enter the following command.

net user

You should see a list of the accounts on your machine. Ignore the two named
HelpAssistant and SUPPORT_388945a0. Are there any accounts listed that you don't
recognize? If not, you can delete the Unknown Account listed under User
Profiles. You might want to create a System Restore point before doing this.

Nepatsfan

 

[Moxieman]

Thank you. I recognize them all, so I will create the restore point and delete.