Windows 7: Group or user names have changed

What exactly does this mean? It appears under properties-->security for certain programs. It certainly wasn't like this before. I've seen discussion about the unknown user account but why does my "Administrator" user have the red X and now I have "Administrators". In control panel-->user accounts there is just the admin account and a guest account.

Hello Bru,

It may be nothing to worry about.

Have you ever previously accessed them with a user account that has now been either deleted, from another computer, or from another installed OS on the same computer, etc....?

Definitely not from another computer or OS. I recall starting to create a new user account and/or activating the guest account but never finishing. This is what is under security for OS (C). Not sure I'm really worried but it just seems odd. Whty did "administrator" become "administrators"?

Normally Administrator is a user and Administrators is a group

If you really wanted to dig into more, you could look at the registry location below for the long numbered SID key for that unknown user to see if it may help ID what it is from.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList



In addition, you could also "Edit" the list of users and groups in the Security tab to "Remove" the unknown user from it.

Thanks. That would take care of the unknown user but as far as the "administrators" is concerned I have no idea how it would have changed from a user to a group.

Any way to change it back to a user?

Bru,

This is normal. You're just misunderstanding what a user and group is. That's all.

In Windows, you have users that are members of groups. For example, your administrator account is a "user" that is a member of the "administrators" and "users" groups. A standard user account would be a "user" that is a member of only the "users" group instead.

If you like, the tutorial below can help show you the differences and give more details on users and groups.

User Accounts - Add or Remove from Groups

I misunderstand a lot when it comes to computer .

I guess I don't understand (ha ha) how the "administrator" got a red X and the "administrators" appeared. I'm sure previously there was only administrator. As mentioned only user account is me/administrator. If it doesn't effect anything it's no problem but computers seem to do things for reasons so I was wondering why/how it happened and also why it doesn't seem to be on every program.

No problem.

Administrator is the name of the built-in Administrator account that is a "user" that is a member of the "administrators" and "users" groups.