[googlymoogly]

Hi all,

So I was messing around with the start/run/control userpasswords2 command the other day and was setting passwords and what not on the guest account and deleting unused users. In doing so, somehow I demoted my personal account from administrator to guest I believe.

So now I have an administrator account, and my personal account that is set as a guest.

Now comes the madness.

When I boot, and hit the welcome screen, only one of the names shows up (the admin one). I can still log in to the other user however by hitting ctrl alt del and manually typing in user name and pass etc.

Also, when logged on as my guest account, I only see the personal account in control panel/user accounts. I am not sure but am pretty sure it's the same way for the administrator.

Also, when running control userpasswords2 as the admin, I don't even see my personal account in there, so therefore I can't change him back to an administrator. See the madness? I hope so because I am clueless.

Thanks for reading! hope to hear soon!

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All the user accounts are listed under C:\ Documents and Settings, and everything is available from an Admin account. I doubt that your account has transfered to Guest, but it may now be a limited account.

What I would do is create myself a new Admin level account and log into it so that XP sets it up. Then (without any configuration of the new account) reboot to Safe Mode and log in as ADMINISTRATOR. Then copy the "Documents and Settings" from your old account to the new one. This Microsoft article explains how to do it without importing any of the old account's problems: http://support.micro...om/?kbid=811151

Once convinced that all the data has been copied, just delete the old account.

[1101doc]

All the user accounts are listed under C:\ Documents and Settings, and everything is available from an Admin account. I doubt that your account has transfered to Guest, but it may now be a limited account.

What I would do is create myself a new Admin level account and log into it so that XP sets it up. Then (without any configuration of the new account) reboot to Safe Mode and log in as ADMINISTRATOR. Then copy the "Documents and Settings" from your old account to the new one. This Microsoft article explains how to do it without importing any of the old account's problems: http://support.micro...om/?kbid=811151

Once convinced that all the data has been copied, just delete the old account.

[googlymoogly]

Well I decided my computer was full of unnecessary junk anyway and did a reinstall of windows. I am so glad I bought this 300GB external drive though. Backups are a breeze. I also decided to invest in norton ghost. I now have a perfect image of my hard drive exactly as it is after a fresh reinstall, all my favorite drivers, all my essential programs and utilities, everything. Now any time **** hits the fan I can go back to happy land

Thanks for the advice though doc!

[1101doc]

Much could be said relative to a new XP set-up, but I'll just say that it is best to disable auto-restart after blue screens. Should at some point the system begin to blue screen at boot, you would be caught in a reboot loop without the ability to see the error codes.

To disable "Auto-restart," open the System applet of Control Panel, and select the Advanced tab. Press the Settings button nearest the bottom under Startup and Recovery. In the dialog box that presents, simply uncheck the box for Automatically Restart under System Failure.

With proper procedures it should never be required, but better safe than sorry.
Good luck, and happy computing!

[googlymoogly]

Doc thanks I was having the hardest time about a month ago trying to figure out why my torrent client would shut down for no reason. Well turns out the computer was getting a tcpip.sys error bluescreen and rebooting after too many connections were made. Very easy to overlook, thanks for the tip.

[1101doc]

Glad to be of service! :-)