User Accounts not Appearing on Welcome Screen

[Ken Triebold]

I have volunteered to keep the computers running at my local library. We
have four computers on an Ethernet network. They are all running Windows XP
Pro. One of them has a user account problem.

There are three user accounts: the administrator account is Exec,which
requires a password, and there are two limited user accounts (all and
child), which do not require a password. Recently, only the Exec account
appears at the Windows logon screen. Because of that, there is no way to
login to all or child, thus rendering this computer unusable to the general
public. Thinking that these two user accounts may have been deleted somehow,
I tried to create a new "all" user account, but Windows told me that this
account already exists.

I did some searching for this problem on the Microsoft web site and found a
fix that seemed to match my situation. The instructions for the fix were to
right click on My Computer, then click on Manage, then expand the node
"Users and Groups". After doing that, I should be able to see the all and
child user accounts and that they should be lined out in red which indicates
that they have been disabled. It goes on to say that I can right click on
each of them and then enable them. Well, when I follow these instructions,
all goes well up to the point where I get to Manage. After getting into
manage, there is no node for "Users and Groups".

Does anyone have any suggestions for restoring the two user accounts that I
have lost? Sorry for the long post.

 

[Nepatsfan]

I have volunteered to keep the computers running at my local library. We have
four computers on an Ethernet network. They are all running Windows XP Pro. One
of them has a user account problem.

There are three user accounts: the administrator account is Exec,which
requires a password, and there are two limited user accounts (all and child),
which do not require a password. Recently, only the Exec account appears at
the Windows logon screen. Because of that, there is no way to login to all or
child, thus rendering this computer unusable to the general public. Thinking
that these two user accounts may have been deleted somehow, I tried to create
a new "all" user account, but Windows told me that this account already
exists.

I did some searching for this problem on the Microsoft web site and found a
fix that seemed to match my situation. The instructions for the fix were to
right click on My Computer, then click on Manage, then expand the node "Users
and Groups". After doing that, I should be able to see the all and child user
accounts and that they should be lined out in red which indicates that they
have been disabled. It goes on to say that I can right click on each of them
and then enable them. Well, when I follow these instructions, all goes well up
to the point where I get to Manage. After getting into manage, there is no
node for "Users and Groups".

Does anyone have any suggestions for restoring the two user accounts that I
have lost? Sorry for the long post.

First off, the fact that Local Users and Groups is not listed in Computer
Management would seem to indicate that this computer is running XP Home Edition.
You might want to check on that by going to Start -> Run and entering
lusrmgr.msc in the Open box. The Local Users and Groups snapin is not available
for the Microsoft Management Console in XP Home Edition.

As for the missing user accounts, see if you can log on by doing the following.

At the Welcome screen, hit the Ctrl + Alt + Del keys twice to bring up the Logon
To Windows dialog. See if you can log into these missing accounts by entering
their names in the User Name box. If you're able to log on to the accounts, go
to Control Panel -> User Accounts. Click on the accounts icon and look on the
right hand side for their account status. I'm betting that they are listed as a
Guest account.

To recover those accounts, do the following;

Go to Start -> Run and enter cmd.exe in the Open box to launch a Command Prompt
window.
Enter the following command at the prompt.

net localgroup users /add all

After you hit the Enter key you should be told that the command completed
successfully.
Next, enter this command.

net localgroup users /add child

Hit Enter and you should see confirmation that the command completed
successfully.

Log off from the Exec account and see if you can log onto those accounts from
the Welcome screen.

Note: The situation you describe sounds as if someone logged on with the Exec
account and tried to make the all and child accounts members of the Power Users
group. That can't be done in Windows XP Home Edition.

Go to Start -> Run and enter control userpasswords2 in the Open box.
The alternate User Accounts applet will be launched.
On the Users page, click an entry in the list of user accounts so it's
highlighted.
Hit the Properties button.
In the account's properties sheet, click on the Group Membership tab.
If you select Standard User (Power Users Group) and hit the OK button, an error
message will appear if the computer is running XP Home Edition.
Unfortunately, taking these actions will result in the account being removed
from the Users group and placed in the Guest group.
It will not appear on the Welcome screen or in the User Accounts applet in
Control Panel.
The account will only be visible at a command prompt using the net user command.

Good luck

Nepatsfan

 

[Ken Triebold]

Thank you Nepatsfan for the great suggestions. I will give them a try on
Tuesday when the library is open again. By the way you are probably right
about this computer being on XP Home. I know I checked what the operating
system was on one of the other computers and it was XP Pro so I assumed that
all four computers were on XP Pro but I was probably wrong. I will check
that on Tuesday also.

 

[Nepatsfan]

Post back if you run into any problems Tuesday.

Good luck

Nepatsfan

 

[Ken Triebold]

First off, the fact that Local Users and Groups is not listed in Computer
Management would seem to indicate that this computer is running XP Home
Edition. You might want to check on that by going to Start -> Run and
entering lusrmgr.msc in the Open box. The Local Users and Groups snapin is
not available for the Microsoft Management Console in XP Home Edition.

As for the missing user accounts, see if you can log on by doing the
following.

At the Welcome screen, hit the Ctrl + Alt + Del keys twice to bring up the
Logon To Windows dialog. See if you can log into these missing accounts by
entering their names in the User Name box. If you're able to log on to the
accounts, go to Control Panel -> User Accounts. Click on the accounts icon
and look on the right hand side for their account status. I'm betting that
they are listed as a Guest account.

To recover those accounts, do the following;

Go to Start -> Run and enter cmd.exe in the Open box to launch a Command
Prompt window.
Enter the following command at the prompt.

net localgroup users /add all

After you hit the Enter key you should be told that the command completed
successfully.
Next, enter this command.

net localgroup users /add child

Hit Enter and you should see confirmation that the command completed
successfully.

Log off from the Exec account and see if you can log onto those accounts
from the Welcome screen.

Note: The situation you describe sounds as if someone logged on with the
Exec account and tried to make the all and child accounts members of the
Power Users group. That can't be done in Windows XP Home Edition.

Go to Start -> Run and enter control userpasswords2 in the Open box.
The alternate User Accounts applet will be launched.
On the Users page, click an entry in the list of user accounts so it's
highlighted.
Hit the Properties button.
In the account's properties sheet, click on the Group Membership tab.
If you select Standard User (Power Users Group) and hit the OK button, an
error message will appear if the computer is running XP Home Edition.
Unfortunately, taking these actions will result in the account being
removed from the Users group and placed in the Guest group.
It will not appear on the Welcome screen or in the User Accounts applet in
Control Panel.
The account will only be visible at a command prompt using the net user
command.

Good luck

Nepatsfan

Nepatsfan, I worked on this computer a little today. First off I confirmed
that it is running Windows XP Home. Then I went to the Welcome screen and
hit Ctrl + Alt + Del twice to get the Windows Logon dialog. When entering
"all" I get this message: "Your account has been disabled. Please see your
system administrator". When entering "child" I get this message: "The system
could not log you on. Make sure your user name and domain are correct, then
type your password again. Letters in passwords must be typed using the
correct case". Well, there is no password set up for either of these users,
so the password should not be an issue. Anyway, as you can see I was unable
to login to all or child from the Windows Logon dialog.

I did not run the net localgroup users /add all -or- net localgroup users
/child commands because I understood your instructions to mean that those
commands should only be run if I was able to log in to all and child as
described in my paragraph immediately above. Let me know if I was wrong
about that and should indeed run the net localgroup users command.

I went to Start -> Run and ran control userpasswords2. Two users showed up.
They were Administrator and Exec.

When running net user at a command prompt these users are shown:
Administrator, all, child, exec, guest, and Helpassistant. It seems that all
and child are actually in the system but disabled. When I go to Control
Panel, User Accounts, the only user accounts that show up are Exec and
Guest.

Do you have any other ideas for re-enabling all and child? I was thinking
that maybe doing a system restore or reloading Windows XP may be needed.

 

[Nepatsfan]

Nepatsfan, I worked on this computer a little today. First off I confirmed
that it is running Windows XP Home. Then I went to the Welcome screen and hit
Ctrl + Alt + Del twice to get the Windows Logon dialog. When entering "all" I
get this message: "Your account has been disabled. Please see your system
administrator". When entering "child" I get this message: "The system could
not log you on. Make sure your user name and domain are correct, then type
your password again. Letters in passwords must be typed using the correct
case". Well, there is no password set up for either of these users, so the
password should not be an issue. Anyway, as you can see I was unable to login
to all or child from the Windows Logon dialog.

I did not run the net localgroup users /add all -or- net localgroup users
/child commands because I understood your instructions to mean that those
commands should only be run if I was able to log in to all and child as
described in my paragraph immediately above. Let me know if I was wrong about
that and should indeed run the net localgroup users command.

I went to Start -> Run and ran control userpasswords2. Two users showed up.
They were Administrator and Exec.

When running net user at a command prompt these users are shown:
Administrator, all, child, exec, guest, and Helpassistant. It seems that all
and child are actually in the system but disabled. When I go to Control Panel,
User Accounts, the only user accounts that show up are Exec and Guest.

Do you have any other ideas for re-enabling all and child? I was thinking that
maybe doing a system restore or reloading Windows XP may be needed.

While logged on with the Exec account, open a command prompt window and enter
the following command.

net user all /active:yes

You should get a response that the command completed successfully.
This should enable the all account.

Next, enter the following at the command prompt and hit enter.

net user all

You should see information about the all account displayed. You should see Yes
next to Account active and Never next to Account expires. Next, check the
entries next to Local Group Memberships. The Users group should be listed there.
If it isn't, enter the following command.

net localgroup users /add all

See if you can now log on to the all account. If you can, log back on to the
Exec account and use the same procedure for the child account. Simply change the
commands by substituting child for all as in net user child /active:yes. Once
again, check the group membership by running the net user child command. Add the
account to the Users group if it's not listed, net localgroup users /add child.

If you find that the child account was disabled but now requires a password, go
to Control Panel -> User Accounts while logged on with the Exec account. The
child icon should now be displayed. Click on it and select Remove the Password
on the next screen. Ignore the warning message and hit the Remove Password
button. See if you can now log on with the child account.

Keep me posted if you run into any problems.

Note: If you're still unable to access these account, I'd suggest creating new
limited user accounts with different names in place of child and all before
reinstalling XP. I can understand that the library might want to retain
uniformity on their computers by using the same account names on all four
machines, but reinstalling the operating system and applications is a lot of
work.

Good luck

Nepatsfan

 

[Ken Triebold]

While logged on with the Exec account, open a command prompt window and
enter the following command.

net user all /active:yes

You should get a response that the command completed successfully.
This should enable the all account.

Next, enter the following at the command prompt and hit enter.

net user all

You should see information about the all account displayed. You should see
Yes next to Account active and Never next to Account expires. Next, check
the entries next to Local Group Memberships. The Users group should be
listed there. If it isn't, enter the following command.

net localgroup users /add all

See if you can now log on to the all account. If you can, log back on to
the Exec account and use the same procedure for the child account. Simply
change the commands by substituting child for all as in net user child
/active:yes. Once again, check the group membership by running the net
user child command. Add the account to the Users group if it's not listed,
net localgroup users /add child.

If you find that the child account was disabled but now requires a
password, go to Control Panel -> User Accounts while logged on with the
Exec account. The child icon should now be displayed. Click on it and
select Remove the Password on the next screen. Ignore the warning message
and hit the Remove Password button. See if you can now log on with the
child account.

Keep me posted if you run into any problems.

Note: If you're still unable to access these account, I'd suggest creating
new limited user accounts with different names in place of child and all
before reinstalling XP. I can understand that the library might want to
retain uniformity on their computers by using the same account names on
all four machines, but reinstalling the operating system and applications
is a lot of work.

Good luck

Nepatsfan

Thanks Nepatsfan. I'll give it a try. I like the way your instructions are
clear and easy to understand.

-Ken

 

[Ken Triebold]

Well, I found out that there was some software on this computer that locked
the hard drive so changes couldn't be made unless it was unlocked first. I
unlocked it and was able to re-create the user accounts that were required.

 

[Nepatsfan]

Glad to hear you were able to fix the problem. Thanks for the update.

Good luck with your volunteer work at the library. Something tells me this isn't
the last little "surprise" you'll encounter.

Nepatsfan

Well, I found out that there was some software on this computer that locked
the hard drive so changes couldn't be made unless it was unlocked first. I
unlocked it and was able to re-create the user accounts that were required.

<snipped>

 

[capept]

I have almost the same problem but worse. I have a comluter with Window XP
and one day there were NO users on the User log in screen. I ctrl alt del
twice and get the classic login window and Owner_2 is on the username window.
I have no idea where that came from. When I try the logins I know they don't
work. I need to get into windows somw how to fix this. Any suggestions?

 

[puamaeole]

Hi,

I'm having similar problems with missing accounts on the welcome screen. I
tried to do the alt ctrl del sign on; however, none of the accounts are
accepting the passwords and I know they are correct.

Any other suggestions?