User Account acting weird.

Greetings all.

My Dad's (passed away late Jan 2013 at 76yrs) laptop was returned to us from Hawaii after his death. I turned it on last nite and encountered a strange thing. There are two user accounts instead of the usual one of Dad's that I always helped him with. The new account is okay with no password but with admin right... Dad's account did not accept the original password I gave him, so I asked my sisters (we were having a family meeting about our Dad's businesses) if Dad had changed his password prior his business trip to Hawaii and they said "yeah." But the password they gave me was also wrong.

So I logged out of Dad's account and logged in using the new admin account and from there removed whatever Dad's user account's password is. Logged out and logging back in to Dad's account and it opened but everything I/we used to see on his desktop is not there anymore. Not even the content of his email client that we needed most. Now the strange thing happened when I restarted the laptop. when I clicked Dad's user account it prompted me for a password again, ALTHOUGH I'VE JUST REMOVED IT. "HOW CAN THIS BE?"

And strangely though, the new admin account has almost all of Dad's user account's content. My guess here is that, a backup was made and restored into this new admin user account but not what we will need above all others... email client content. I opened a folder on the desktop "backup" and it contains only WindowsMail and nothing else.

I would say that someone had an expert IT mess-up this laptop in a way that we will not be able to recover Dad's past emails in MS Outlook 2007.

Please note that I have also tried running "system restore" to a date prior Dad's departure to Hawaii and the result was not even close to the lowest satisfactory level of a human being. The only thing that it (system restore) did was displaying Dad's user account as the only active account and that is it.

Any assistance and tips and counselling advice will be greatly praised.

Thank you all and God Bless,

Zeamann.

Hello. My first thought is if your Dad used Outlook, try searching the entire hard drive(s) and backups for PST files. If found, then use Outlook's menu, File - Open -Outlook Data File to open a PST.

ajmich said:

Hello. My first thought is if your Dad used Outlook, try searching the entire hard drive(s) and backups for PST files. If found, then use Outlook's menu, File - Open -Outlook Data File to open a PST.

I will search the entire hard drive but I believe it won't change anything... as I believe running system restore would have put everything back to/in place. will post back result though.

VistaKing said:

See if this will help you link will help.

Where does Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 save my information and configurations? - Outlook - Office.com

I will skip this one because I already knew where the information is kept as I have been setting up and troubleshooting email accounts using a number of different email clients for several years now. thanks anyways.

Layback Bear said:

I'm also thinking that your dad didn't want his email to be accessed by anybody but himself. You dad password protected his email for a reason, privacy. If it was my father I would honor his privacy dead or alive.
Just my thoughts.

this is kinda funny to me. I was the one who setup my Dad's first email (the one I use now) and also his second email, both are free gmail accounts. I was also the one who upgraded his laptop from vista home premium to 7ultimate. i was also the one who setup his email client = MS Outlook 2007 after having installed MS Office 2007. I was also the one who installed his security software and everything else... printer driver, taught him many times on how to attach a file; and even how to scan an attachment prior doing the former.

SO IF PRIVACY INTRUSION IS YOUR THOUGHT, then you are poking me on the side.

Please note everyone: This is not a joke! And I would also like those who are not Pacific Islanders, to remember that in Kiribati, the majority of families will go for a one-minded idea/decision, rather than individually demanding a share of the pie. Should anyone doubt that I am speaking the truth, please provide me your email address and I'll sent you the minute of our court's discussion with Single Magistrate.

Like I said, we had a meeting last nite and needed to refer to Dad's past messages and files too to shed light on how we must steer the business (retail shop, live petfish, crew agency, accommodation, vehicle hire/rentals, IT services, and other micro fund-raising activities) accordingly.

Any tip on how to recover email messages from a messed (sabotaged) up system would be nice. i got a program for recovering files but I am not sure yet of it potential result.

thank you all for your understanding and God Bless,

Layback Bear said:

Please read the Forum rules. Rule #6 applies.

Windows 7 Support Forums - Forum Rules

Thank you Layback Bear for the reminder. So it looks like whatever I say or whether I am telling the truth or not, this is not the place to discuss it?

Well, I tend believe rule #6 applies to potential privacy threats with ill-minded reasons; but Anyways, I thank you for your time and will look somewhere else for assistance.

kind regards and God Bless,