How can I determine if my laptop is controlled via remote

I believe my computer is being controlled remotely and I am unable to access and change many applications and functions. I know there is another administrator acct that uses certificates to log in and this administrator also controls the bios system. This is one reason I have been so frustrated....I'm still learning about computers so therefore even though I know it's being controlled remotely, I don't know what to do. Please can someone help me by explaining with verbiage I can understand? I would be so grateful:)

Hi, agibson8891.

I know there is another administrator acct that uses certificates to log in and this administrator also controls the bios system.

I have a few questions for you that may better enable us to assist you.

Is this your computer or does it belong to your employer? I ask because Corporate IT departments use policies for providing approved access/capabilities, etc.

If not a business computer, who set up your computer and created your user account?

If you set up your account, did you enable the hidden Administrator account? If that is the case, you can follow the instructions in Brink's tutorial to disable the account as it is not recommended to leave the built-in Administrator account always enabled: Built-in Administrator Account - Enable or Disable

Lastly, to check if remote desktop is enabled and to disable it, do the following:

• Open Control Panel
• Open System And Security
• Open System
• Select Remote Settings from the left pane in System to open the System Properties dialog box for the Remote tab.
• Click Don’t Allow Connections To This Computer and then click OK.

Before starting any of this, disconnect from any network. Unplug cat5 or turn off your wireless card. Remove any possible connection, and see if there's any change in the way your system runs.

Corrine, I have attatched some snipping tool shapshots regarding Administrator accts on my laptop. I hope you can help me decipher what all of this means. Apparently I am going to have to upload these one at the time so please be patient with me:)

PeaB4YouGo, I am not sure what cat5 is and I don't know what a network card is, or where to look to find out if there is one on my laptop.

agibson8891 said:

PeaB4YouGo, I am not sure what cat5 is and I don't know what a network card is, or where to look to find out if there is one on my laptop.

Any computer that is networked has a network card. Some are wireless, some are wired (category 5 cable = CAT5). If you turn off wireless networking, or disconnect the cable, you will be off the net and therefore will block access to someone who may be remotely controlling your laptop. It's not a permanent solution, obviously, but more of a troubleshooting step.

Hi, agibson8891.

I suggest you disable the Guest account. Here are the instructions from Turn the guest account on or off:

1. Open User Accounts by clicking the Start button , clicking Control Panel, clicking User Accounts and Family Safety (or clicking User Accounts, if you are connected to a network domain), and then clicking User Accounts.
2. Click Manage another account. If you're prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.
3. Do one of the following:
   
   
   • If the guest account is off, click Guest, and then click Turn On.
   • If the guest account is on, click Guest, and then click Turn off the guest account.

Thanks Corrine for your help. Here are some more snippets that I need help with if you can... When I access the user acct tool; netplwiz, I click on the advance button and then I click on the advanced button under Advanced User Management and it opens the mmc with an error saying the version of windows i'm using won't allow access (see below snippet). Also, can you explain what the accounts on the credentials page mean; one says persistance: Enerprise and the other persistance: local machine. I also don't understand what the virtualapp/didlogical mean (see below snippet). In the previous snippets I posted, there are 3 user accounts; April, Guest, and HomeGroupUser$, which one is my account? When I log on to my computer it says April. I also don't understand why I get the mmc error, but I have the lusrmgr.exe file in C:/windows/system32. This is all so confusing to me and I really appreciate your patience in my ignorance

How do I find the name to the Remote Computer?