Windows 7: HELP: I'm no longer an admin!

jeez, I seem to be having problem after problem with Windows 7 nowadays.

Somehow, I managed to make my account, the one and only account on this computer, not an administrator. That's BAD! I can't get admin rights back since I'm technically a "guest" now and don't have any actual privileges.



Any idea how I can get admin access back? Basically I did the thing about unchecking "require users to enter a password" so that I wouldn't need to keep clicking on my name, but apparently that turned me into a guest, which just screwed up everything. HELP!

Hello DrfSuperCenter,

You might see if you are able to boot to Safe Mode into the built-in Administrator account to then hopefully be able to change your default user account's type back to an administrator account. Without a administrator account available, you should boot into Safe Mode already logged on as the built-in Administrator.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

Shawn,

Even if DrfSuperCenter's account was an admin account, when he installs software etc, he would still be prompted to give an admin password, so in essence does he really need an admin level acount if Windows 7 always has a built in administrator?

When i upgraded from build 7000 to 7100 I created an account called Administrator as I had in 7000. However 7100 would not let me name the account administrator as it already existed, so I called it Admin.

Which got me thinking; if there is already a built in administrator account - do I really need to have any of the accounts as Administrator on my machine?

I booted into Safe Mode and it was still just my normal account.

And my account was always admin before and I never had a problem installing software. I turned UAC off so it just did whatever it had to do to install.

Ah never mind, I had to log out of my normal account with Safe Mode, click on Administrator, then make a new account with admin rights, then log in as THAT one and make myself a member of Administrators.

Good riddance, though.

Happened to me too when I disabled some services. Dunno which one was "dangerous" but its related with on or more service. If you set it to disable, your no admin anymore and never again.

Hello Saverio,

The built-in Administrator account is disabled by default in Windows 7, so unless you have it enabled, you will need to keep the default administrator account that was setup during installation. These accounts are not the same though. Without at least one administrator account enabled, you would not be able to UAC approve or run anything that requires permission to run as adiministrator.

I'm happy to hear that you got it sorted. Thank you for posting back with your results.

I see, so effectively I could enable the administrator account to show - and then delete the superfluous user admin account. Many thanks once again for your insight Shawn.

dont delete the built in account just turn it off in case you need it again.

I would not delete the other administrator account. Instead, I would not use the built-in Administrator and only use the default administrator account setup during installation. The built-in Administrator is suppose to be for getting you out of trouble in case something happens to your default one.