[Jules52]

I'm gutted! I cannot access my administrator account and so cannot use the User Account Control (UAC) to change things when necessary. I am trying to sort out 2 other problems using your services. One of the experts made me think that I should not be logged on to the computer as an administrator. Consequently I have changed my account to a standard account and created a new administrator accound and password for when I have to enter the administrator password to use the User Account Control etc. The password I used was chosen very carefully and written down so I would not make a mistake, capslock was off and there was no problem when entered into the confirm password box so I presume it was correct twice. I cannot even get into the administrator account from the log on screen. I wish I had never bought this Vista computer. I've used XP for years with few problems. The windows update problem (in another post) has not occurred at all in my XP desktop computer, only in this Toshiba Vista laptop. How many more hours of evenings must I spend trying to sort things out. I would like a life elsewhere!

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The problem with having a normal 'standard' day-to-day user account for yourself is that the frequency with which you need to do things which a standard account doesn't permit makes this impractical and annoying -- having to switch to an admin account several times a day gets very tedious.

Elevate your account back to what it was before you demoted it and use that as you did before. I've been using my account with full admin priveleges every day for two years with no problems whatsoever ( with a good and up-to-date third party firewall of course).

Not using an admin account for day-to-day use is all very well in theory but totally unworkable in practice if your a 'power' user like me.

[pip22]

The problem with having a normal 'standard' day-to-day user account for yourself is that the frequency with which you need to do things which a standard account doesn't permit makes this impractical and annoying -- having to switch to an admin account several times a day gets very tedious.

Elevate your account back to what it was before you demoted it and use that as you did before. I've been using my account with full admin priveleges every day for two years with no problems whatsoever ( with a good and up-to-date third party firewall of course).

Not using an admin account for day-to-day use is all very well in theory but totally unworkable in practice if your a 'power' user like me.

[Jules52]

The problem is: I can't elevate my account back to administrator as decribed in my previous post. To do this I need UAC and therefore access to the administrator account that will not accept the password. Is there a way to access the administrator account.

[Murray S.]

Howdy:

The System Admin account and the Admin account you made are two entirely different accounts.

When you try to get in to the Admin account at the logon screen, try leaving the password box empty for the System Admin account.

BTW, this is the account you don't want to be using all the time.

I see nothing wrong with using an account that has admin options.

Murray

[Jules52]

I don't know what the System Admin account is. What do you mean by "leaving the password box empty for the System Admin account"? When I try to get in to the Admin account (that I made) I am asked for a password and if I leave this blank I get the infamous red cross and "The user name or password is incorrect." So I'm still stuck.

[Murray S.]

Okay.. when you get to the logon screen, press ctrl-al-del and a new type of logon screen will show up.

Now, in the username box, type in Administrator

Leave the password box blank and press "enter"

Murray

[Jules52]

Pressing Ctrl-Alt-Del does nothing! - either at the initial logon screen for the accounts or at the screen after clicking an account icon and being asked for a password.

[Murray S.]

Boot into Safe Mode and try it.

What happens when you try to get into the Admin account you created?

Murray

[Jules52]

Something odd is going on. When I set up My Admin account I set an 11 character password. Entering this password will not open the Admin account or get past UAC. Considering the remote possibility that I had entered the Admin account password differently, I tried just entering the first first seven characters of the same password and noticed the the error message was different to that obtained when I used the 11 character password. It w.as “the user profile service failed the login”. So there was something different using the first 7 characters of my 11 character password. I had been wondering whether a system restore would give me back my own username account as administrator as before (before I set my account to standard and created the new admin account). I don’t suppose system restore will do this but I opened Control Panel-Backup & Restore Centre anyway and clicked on ‘use system restore’. Entering the 11 character password did not get past UAC and open Restore. However entering the 7 character password did!! I didn’t use restore as I did not think it wise at this point. The 7 character password gets past most UACs but not the one to allow me to change my user account back to administrator from standard. Following your suggestion I went into safe mode. Ctrl-Alt-Del did nothing in safe mode. I tried the 11 character password for the admin account in safe mode and got the usual login failure. However, when I used the first 7 characters of the same password it logged into the admin account. Here, in safe mode, logged into the admin account, I was able to change the admin account password to a completely different 5 character password. However, I could not manage other accounts and change my own account back to administrator. Restarting back into normal mode, the new 5 character password does not log into the admin account. Again I get “the user profile service failed the login. However, logging into my own standard account the new 5 character password gets by at least some UACs eg I have just quickly turned Norton Auto Protect off and on. I still cannot manage other accounts and change mine back to administrator.

[PsychPosse]

In Vista, the real Full Admin account is actually hidden. You can access it though. There is a procedure you can do to get the Full Admin logon to your logon screen.

Here is a great tutorial on how to make this happen.

Administrator Account

If you are not actually logged in now as the Full admin then this procedure should help you to do so and then you can manage the other accounts and change the password information.

If you are now logged in as a full admin, then you might have to take the route I discussed with you about resetting it from a boot disc.

[Jules52]

I have done as you suggested and now have the built-in administrator account. However, I can't get it to help me. Whilst it will open all sorts of things in control panel it will not open anything in User Accounts, not change/manage other accounts or even parental controls. Incidentally when logging into this administrator account, I get the following error messages:
"Your user profile was not loaded correctly. You have been logged in with the default profile for the system."
and:
"c:\windows\system32\config\systeprofile\AppData\Local\Temp\mapi.log contains an invalid path"

I'm 6 hours ahead of you in UK so its time for bed!

[Gemius]

Sorry to hear about your problems. I was also locked out of my Admin account in Vista Home Premium. I tried to find a solution but came to the conclusion that nobody had a clue what to do about it. Luckily, thanks to Carbonite (what a great service that is) I was fully backed up and able to wipe the lot and start again. It doesn't take long to re load Vista and if you're back up is good you could be up and running again in a few hours.
I now run Vista from a Standard account, OK every now and then I have to enter my password to get things done but it's only a few seconds and as a leisure user I don't consider it worth making a fuss.
Having reinstalled Vista you should make a password reset disk (Control Panel - User Accounts) Whether this would save the situation if it occures again I don't know but that's what Windows says you should do.

Sorry if I'm trying to teach you to suck eggs. I may be talking out of my hat because a lot of computer jargon whizzes straight over my head but that's my experience so I thought I ought to share it with you,

Good luck

[Jules52]

A strange thing has happened! Two of my problems, ‘Administrator Password Fail’ and ‘Security Updates Failure’, have somehow resolved. Yesterday (Sat) my Norton Online Security (NOS) notification icon flagged for attention and NOS required that I should perform a full scan and then change my Windows Update setting from ‘download updates but let me choose whether to install them’ to ‘install updates automatically (recommended)’. First I did the full virus scan (no viruses etc) then I changed the Windows Update setting as recommended. After this I still had all the problems. I was out all Saturday evening till late. This morning (Sun), when I switched on my computer and logged in to my account, windows updates automatically downloaded and installed successfully! I was rather surprised and even more so when I checked the Update History to find that all of the updates that previously would not install had indeed installed successfully! An even greater surprise was, without me doing anything extra to the computer, all the ‘Administrator Password Fail’ issues were resolved! Eg user accounts access, managing other accounts, parental controls have all become available and all UACs work. I presume the Windows Updates caused the problems and subsequently resolved them. How, I do not know – I’m amazed! – and a lot less stressed! The laptop was getting close to the dustbin! (not really, but that’s how I felt).