Completely lost administration abilities

Did what I usually do on XP: created dummy user w/admin, drop real user to
limited, hide dummy via registry. On XP, this gives "Administrator" and real
user login icons on the login screen - nice and tidy. Not Vista. Still only
shows lowly real user.

Now, I have no way to undo it. Login only shows real user, no admin.
Ctrl-Alt-Del no longer gives place to type in hidden user name, all admin
operations ask for a password but nowhere to type it. No luck via safe mode.
From recovery panel, regedit shows nothing I did, so can't unhide dummy
account that has admin.

Help! How can I (1) edit the registry w/o admin privs, or (2) add another
user or activate administrator account w/o admin privs? Machine is not part
of a domain.

Hi,
Can you, in Safe Mode, get to Control panel> Administrative tools> Computer
management> Local users and groups> Users ? If you can access Users, try
right-click> Properties> uncheck "Account is disabled" for admin accounts.

Hope this helps,
Don
[MS MVP- IE]

"SDLSAGINAW" <SDLSAGINAW@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:FD9D78F5-4C0A-4016-A220-BE23AF0BA0E9@microsoft.com...

> Did what I usually do on XP: created dummy user w/admin, drop real user to
> limited, hide dummy via registry. On XP, this gives "Administrator" and

real

> user login icons on the login screen - nice and tidy. Not Vista. Still

only

> shows lowly real user.
>
> Now, I have no way to undo it. Login only shows real user, no admin.
> Ctrl-Alt-Del no longer gives place to type in hidden user name, all admin
> operations ask for a password but nowhere to type it. No luck via safe

mode.

> From recovery panel, regedit shows nothing I did, so can't unhide dummy
> account that has admin.
>
> Help! How can I (1) edit the registry w/o admin privs, or (2) add another
> user or activate administrator account w/o admin privs? Machine is not

part

> of a domain.

Safe mode wouldn't give me any extra rights either, all priviledged
operations asked for admin password, but nowhere to type it in.

Ended up doing a system restore from recovery environment to a time before I
did the changes, so at least the system is back to usable again.

Anyway, I had forgotten that Vista never enabled the administrator account
before I did this 'trick' so I really hosed myself.

Turns out the trick wasn't needed anyway, Vista is happy to show
administrator login whenever enabled.

XP won't show the administrator login if another non-hidden user has admin
privs, and user maintenance won't let you drop the last real login to a
limited user so you can get the real administrator login to show. Catch-22,
thus the 'trick'.

"Don Varnau" wrote:

> Hi,
> Can you, in Safe Mode, get to Control panel> Administrative tools> Computer
> management> Local users and groups> Users ? If you can access Users, try
> right-click> Properties> uncheck "Account is disabled" for admin accounts.
>
> Hope this helps,
> Don
> [MS MVP- IE]
>
> "SDLSAGINAW" <SDLSAGINAW@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:FD9D78F5-4C0A-4016-A220-BE23AF0BA0E9@microsoft.com...

> real

> only

> mode.

> part

>
>

Glad you got it resolved. Thanks for the report.

Don

"SDLSAGINAW" <SDLSAGINAW@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:9DDE47D6-9E1A-4704-B42C-DA156143D002@microsoft.com...

> Safe mode wouldn't give me any extra rights either, all priviledged
> operations asked for admin password, but nowhere to type it in.
>
> Ended up doing a system restore from recovery environment to a time before

I

> did the changes, so at least the system is back to usable again.
>
> Anyway, I had forgotten that Vista never enabled the administrator account
> before I did this 'trick' so I really hosed myself.
>
> Turns out the trick wasn't needed anyway, Vista is happy to show
> administrator login whenever enabled.
>
> XP won't show the administrator login if another non-hidden user has admin
> privs, and user maintenance won't let you drop the last real login to a
> limited user so you can get the real administrator login to show.

Catch-22,

> thus the 'trick'.

> "Don Varnau" wrote:
>

Computer

accounts.

user to

and

Still

admin

safe

dummy

another

not