Windows Admin account issue

[Guest]

On an older install of windows I had swapped the names of the account
Administrator and Guest. Later I reinstall windows knowing it would keep old
settings. Problem I found after the install is that It kept them as if
unswapped leaveing them named as before. Guest was guest and Administrator
was that, how ever the guest account was unable to be logged into even if not
turned off and the administrator account was no better then any accoutn with
admin rights.

Any way to currect this with out makeing a clean install?

 

[Steven L Umbach]

You would need to logon as an administrator to change settings. You can use
the command net localgroup administrators to which users are in the local
administrators group. Hopefully you know the name of at least one. An
"upgrade" install will not change group memberships or use names. A pristine
install would. There are free tools that can be used to reset the passwords
of user accounts that may be of help as shown in the link below. --- Steve

http://www.petri.co.il/forgot_administrator_password.htm

 

[Guest]

do you know what to in the case where all but one of the users have been
deleted but it is not the administrator it is just a regular user. how can i
get back and create an administrator if I can. I still have one user but it
will not let me download any updates from windowsupdates because it will not
allow the information bar on a normal user to get the activex files. I
tried to create a new user and it said "wrong number of arguments or invalid
property assignments"

 

[Steven L Umbach]

The built in administrator account can not be deleted though it can be
disable though I suppose just about anything is possible if a computer is
really messed up. Use the command net local administrators to see if it
shows anybody in the local administrators group as shown in the example
below. Only an administrator or power user can create new user accounts
though a power user can not create or manage administrators. I have never
seen that error when trying to add a user account. It usually either works
or access is denied. Also look in the logs via Event Viewer to see if
anything is reported that may indicate related problems. --- Steve

D:\Documents and Settings\Steve>net localgroup administrators
Alias name administrators
Comment Administrators have complete and unrestricted access to the
computer
ter/domain

Members

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Administrator
Steve
UMBACH3\Domain Admins
The command completed successfully.

 

[Guest]

No the problem is that the admin account does not exsit with full system admin.

Last install of wndows I had I swaped the names of "guest" and
"administrator".

Reinstalled windows over it expecting there not to be an issue.

How ever there was an issue. The install made "guest" guest and made
"administrator" power user. Still have to log in the same way you would for
"administrator" but it has no more options then a power user.

Any way to fix that with out doing a clean install?

 

[Steven L Umbach]

Reinstalling Windows with an upgrade/repair installation will not change any
group memberships. What does the command net localgroup administrators show?
Paste it here in a reply. --- Steve