Can I give a new user account the same name as an old, deleted one?

[townsbg]

Please take a screenshot of what you are looking at. Here's how to enable the hidden administrator. If you have home premium you will only be able to use option 2. Built-in Administrator Account - Enable or Disable

Note: I don't recommend using the hidden admin all of the time. I only log into it on mine when I need elevated privileges for an extended period of time.

 

[Tharthan]

Please take a screenshot of what you are looking at. Here's how to enable the hidden administrator. If you have home premium you will only be able to use option 2. Built-in Administrator Account - Enable or Disable

Note: I don't recommend using the hidden admin all of the time. I only log into it on mine when I need elevated privileges for an extended period of time.

(That's just an example. Many other files have the seemingly-deleted Administrator account looking like that in their security tabs. The deleted accounts that still have their IDs under security tabs are above the accounts seen in the screenshot, by the way, if I were to scroll up.)

This was the Powershell script that I ran:

[Script of Nov 30th] Remove orphaned SIDs from File/Folder ACL (PowerShell) – OneScript Team Blog

I know that I ought to have known better than to run a Powershell script. That's my bad. After the script caused the problem, I immediately disabled Powershell scripts again.

Also, so you know, there is another pre-installed account that came with my computer (it is an OEM Gateway installation) called "SingleClick Admin". I don't know if, in the worst case scenario, I could "repoint" that account to the troubled System Administrator account or something. Just a thought. I don't know if that is possible, however.

...

Enabling and disabling the Administrator account didn't do anything, if that is what you wanted me to do.

Or did you want me to try logging into that account, to make sure that it still actually exists?

 

[townsbg]

I don't know for sure what that x means nor could I find anything concrete on it, however I got that when I disabled my administrator account and it went away when I enabled it (after a logout). Most users don't need the administrator account except under extreme circumstances but they need an administrator account. If you already have an administrator account you should need to enable the administrator account. Why are you wanting to? It is a security hole to run the administrator account if you aren't careful because it doesn't by default get any UAC prompts. You certainly shouldn't use it long term. I don't even like logging into an admin account on a regular basis. My every day use account is a standard account.

Permissions on windows are complicated and most people don't have a need to edit them nor should they if they don't know what they are doing. If you aren't experiencing any issues then I would worry about those entries. After all if the account is deleted there isn't anything to take advantage of them since any new accounts will have a unique identifier and new account are controlled by you the administrator/owner.

 

[Tharthan]

If you already have an administrator account you should need to enable the administrator account. Why are you wanting to? It is a security hole to run the administrator account

I don't. I've never used the system administrator account.

I just didn't know if what happened would cause problems for me in the long term. As mentioned previously, I am going to be doing a repair install once I get a hold of a good Windows Update pack that has all of the updates that I would need (because the repair install would seemingly cause, in my case, problems with Windows Update). I don't know if that would fix that. Probably not, I'd think.

So you don't think that not having the system administrator account available would cause me problems long term?

 

[townsbg]

If you have access to an administrator account then you have what you need. Most people never need it and it probably is there. Did you run an elevated command prompt before running that command? If not that would explain why nothing happened.

 

[Tharthan]

Did you run an elevated command prompt before running that command? If not that would explain why nothing happened.

I did run an elevated command prompt prior to importing the module to Powershell and then executing it, yes.

 

[townsbg]

I meant when activating the administrator.