Mark said:
I recently tried to add a new user account for myself. my roomate's account
said "administrator." so when i tried adding a new one, i suddenly became the
"administrator' and now i cannot find her account. her wallpaper, desktop,
folders and most of her icons that once were on the screen are no longer
there. does her account still exist somewhere? is there a way to get it back?
is her account and folders, pictures, icons, etc deleted?
help!
As you've discovered, once any additional user accounts have been
created, the Administrator account will no longer be displayed on the
Welcome Screen. This is a default security feature. By design, the
only way to log into the Administrator account of WinXP Home is to
reboot into Safe Mode. For WinXP Pro, pressing CTRL+ALT+DEL twice at
the Welcome Screen will produce the standard login dialog box.
The built-in Administrator account really isn't intended to be
used for day-to-day normal use. The standard security practice is to
rename the account, set a strong password on it, and use it only to
create another account for regular use, reserving the Administrator
account as a "back door" in case something corrupts your regular account(s).
A wiser course of action would be to create another user account
for your room-mate's daily use, and copy desired the files and settings
from the Administrator account to this newly created user profile.
HOW TO Create and Configure User Accounts in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;279783
How to Copy User Data to a New User Profile
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;811151
--
Bruce Chambers
Help us help you:
You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having
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