Major Assistance Necessary - Please!!

Mike Connor said:

glennc said:

Hello,
Don't exactly know how I did it, but I was running the W7 64Bit Ultimate with a user/adminstrator account. I decided to show the Administrator Account and downgrade the user/admin account to user only. I successfully created the Administrator account and both account showed up on next boot. That was the last time the user account was visible or accessible. Now it only shows the Administrator Account to open. Under user accounts it shows the Administrator, the Guest and no other. On the main drive under user, it still shows the Owner (previous user/admin account) complete setup, docs, music, video etc:.
How do I regain that account and have it show as an option on the boot up screen.
Desperate to find the easiest, smartest way. Thanks for your help.
glennc

Control Panel --> Administrative Tools --> Local Security Policy;



Have a read through it and the help files. A default guest account already exists as does a "hidden" admin account which has universal control. ( The default account which most people use is not a "Universal Administrator Account").

You have to activate that admin account;



Click on "enable". Set it up as required with password etc.

Enable the guest or another user account and assign whatever rights you want to give it, using "User Rights Assignment", and that's basically that!

Make sure you have a good backup ( image ), and that you don't forget your password, because if you do there is no way to get in to the system.

Regards....Mike Connor

Howdy Mike Conner,
Thanks for the explanation on the accounts and what I should do. As soon as I get a good update backup, I am going to attempt to create the real Administrator account and convert my current pseudoAdmin account back to a plain users.
Your info will help.
glennc

cluberti said:

You can hide accounts from the welcome screen in the registry, so it may be useful to make sure it isn't listed there as a hidden account. The key is HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\SpecialAccounts\UserList - if there's a DWORD with the user name and the value is set to 0 in this registry location, it will be hidden. Delete the DWORD value or set it to 1 to get it to show back up.

If it's not there, you can run lusrmgr.msc to see if the account still exists on the system.

Hello cluberti,
Thank you for joining in the thread. That is something I would have thought of and if I did, I sure wouldn't know how to do it. Bunch of good info. Appreciate it, as I did do the restore image, I will save that procedure for my future muck ups.
glennc

MacGyvr said:

System Restore IS the easiest and simplest solution. It's certainly what most of us would try first.

Hello MacGyvr,
Glad to hear I didn't not just jump of a cliff after trashing my system. It was so easy to do! Nice to know that I am using a reliable suggested method for recovery. If I'm gonna be dumb, I gotta be tough!
glennc