Vista no enabled user in administrators group??

[Steve]

I was trying to help someone resolve a problem on their newer Dell computer
today with Vista Home Premium installed. The user was having problems with
Peachtree and up to a short time everything worked fine. The computer still
works well as long as the user does not try to do anything that needs
administrator priviliges.

After a short spin using it I thought something was odd. To my surprise I
ran the command net localgroup administrators and only the built in
administrator account was in it and net user administrator showed that it
was disabled leaving no user having administrator access to the computer.
Trying to open command prompt via run as administrator and running commands
like net user administrator /active:yes, or net localgroup administrators
user /add failed with access denied messages.

I tried booting using PE type disk and copying the registry files from
\windows\system32\config\regback to \windows\system32\config but that did
not work and using the NT offline password reset disk also did not work. It
did find the administrator account and was able to enable it and reset the
password but then when I tried to save the changes I got the error that
could not write to sam. Checking permissions to registry keys and registry
folders/files looked normal. Tried logging on as administrator in Safe Mode
though I did not really expect that to work and it did not nor would command
line commands work as administrator. Someone recommended checking a registry
key for filteradministratortoken and that was set to 0 as recommended. MMC
snapins for local users and groups does not work in Vista Home Premium
though If it did I would not expect any success there either.

The user has all her data backed up and can still backup other data but I
was trying to avoid doing a recovery to factory installed level. I don't
have a Vista OEM disk so I can not try to do a repair install.

Anyone else seen this before and if so had any luck trying to enable the
built in administrator account when it was the ONLY account in the
administrators group and was disabled??

Thanks Steve

 

[Kerry Brown]

I was trying to help someone resolve a problem on their newer Dell computer
today with Vista Home Premium installed. The user was having problems with
Peachtree and up to a short time everything worked fine. The computer still
works well as long as the user does not try to do anything that needs
administrator priviliges.

After a short spin using it I thought something was odd. To my surprise I
ran the command net localgroup administrators and only the built in
administrator account was in it and net user administrator showed that it
was disabled leaving no user having administrator access to the computer.
Trying to open command prompt via run as administrator and running
commands like net user administrator /active:yes, or net localgroup
administrators user /add failed with access denied messages.

I tried booting using PE type disk and copying the registry files from
\windows\system32\config\regback to \windows\system32\config but that did
not work and using the NT offline password reset disk also did not work.
It did find the administrator account and was able to enable it and reset
the password but then when I tried to save the changes I got the error
that could not write to sam. Checking permissions to registry keys and
registry folders/files looked normal. Tried logging on as administrator in
Safe Mode though I did not really expect that to work and it did not nor
would command line commands work as administrator. Someone recommended
checking a registry key for filteradministratortoken and that was set to 0
as recommended. MMC snapins for local users and groups does not work in
Vista Home Premium though If it did I would not expect any success there
either.

The user has all her data backed up and can still backup other data but I
was trying to avoid doing a recovery to factory installed level. I don't
have a Vista OEM disk so I can not try to do a repair install.

Anyone else seen this before and if so had any luck trying to enable the
built in administrator account when it was the ONLY account in the
administrators group and was disabled??

Do you have any Vista DVD that you can boot from? MVP Jimmy Brush has
created a small program to fix this but you need a DVD to boot from. Some
OEM computers have an option on the F8 bootup screen to access the Vista
repair options. This may suffice.

http://www.jimmah.com/vista/Administration/locked_out_of_admin.aspx

 

[Steve]

Thanks a bunch Kerry as that looks very promising. I have a TechNet version
of Vista on DVD. Offhand do you know if that would work??

Thanks again, Steve

 

[Kerry Brown]

It should work. Make sure you have a backup before you try this.

 

[Jeff]

Hey Kerry.... quick question for ya! If I chose option #3 with your provided
link below... will I lose all my emails from my microsoft outlook? Thanks!
-Jeff