i now own my cousins laptop and his user account is still set as the admin. my account is set as a standard user. i am unable to do ANYTHING without my cousins password since the regular admin account is hidden/disabled. any ideas on what i should do? there are no other user accounts with admin rights.
Go to Control Panel>User Accounts, select your account to change the Account type to Administrator. This will require the existing Admin's password so he will need to cooperate which he should if he sold you the laptop. User Account Type - Change
From your new Admin account you can delete the old owner's account when ready, although I'd put his files on the desktop when prompted until he is sure he has everything he needs.
If not you can enable the Hidden Admin Account from the Recovery Environment in order to change the Account type.Built-in Administrator - Enable from WinRE
If I were you I would start fresh and do a Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7 which will result in a perfect install for as long as you stick with the steps, tools and methods in the tutorial.
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