I have accidentally created an "administrator" account which doesn't have
administrator privileges. When i try to log on as administrator I end up
logged onto the wrong one and i can't find any way of really logging on as
administrator. No other account belongs to the administrator group so I'm in
trouble

Re: Duplicate Administrator accounts by S

S
Mon May 21 03:33:27 CDT 2007

What OS (XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows 2000) and how did you do it?
Anyway my suggestion will be to use any of the local administrator account
password reset tools to check the name and reset the password for real
administrator.

--
Svyatoslav Pidgorny, MS MVP - Security, MCSE
-= F1 is the key =-

* http://sl.mvps.org * http://msmvps.com/blogs/sp *

"still learning ...." <still learning ....@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote
in message news:C98E5527-86E6-4CA5-B0E1-A1ABC3499D61@microsoft.com...
>I have accidentally created an "administrator" account which doesn't have
> administrator privileges. When i try to log on as administrator I end up
> logged onto the wrong one and i can't find any way of really logging on as
> administrator. No other account belongs to the administrator group so I'm
> in
> trouble



Re: Duplicate Administrator accounts by msnews

msnews
Mon May 21 12:49:43 CDT 2007

So you are saying that you have two accounts, both of which are named
Administrator ? And that one is and one is not member of Administrators,
but, although you know the password for the one that is a member of the
Administrators group you cannot log into that account because login is
always happening using the non-admin account.

When logged in, what is the result from, at a cmd prompt, running
net localgroup administrators
and from running
echo %homepath%

What is the OS and is this machine domain joined?

Roger

"still learning ...." <still learning ....@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote
in message news:C98E5527-86E6-4CA5-B0E1-A1ABC3499D61@microsoft.com...
>I have accidentally created an "administrator" account which doesn't have
> administrator privileges. When i try to log on as administrator I end up
> logged onto the wrong one and i can't find any way of really logging on as
> administrator. No other account belongs to the administrator group so I'm
> in
> trouble



Re: Duplicate Administrator accounts by stilllearning

stilllearning
Wed May 23 03:19:00 CDT 2007

thank you for your interest..
Result of net localgroup .....is
"Alias name administrators
comment Administrators have complete and ....
Members
-----------
Administrator

echo %homepath% is \Documents and Settings\Admin

Windows XP Pro

"msnews mvp" wrote:

> So you are saying that you have two accounts, both of which are named
> Administrator ? And that one is and one is not member of Administrators,
> but, although you know the password for the one that is a member of the
> Administrators group you cannot log into that account because login is
> always happening using the non-admin account.
>
> When logged in, what is the result from, at a cmd prompt, running
> net localgroup administrators
> and from running
> echo %homepath%
>
> What is the OS and is this machine domain joined?
>
> Roger
>
> "still learning ...." <still learning ....@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote
> in message news:C98E5527-86E6-4CA5-B0E1-A1ABC3499D61@microsoft.com...
> >I have accidentally created an "administrator" account which doesn't have
> > administrator privileges. When i try to log on as administrator I end up
> > logged onto the wrong one and i can't find any way of really logging on as
> > administrator. No other account belongs to the administrator group so I'm
> > in
> > trouble
>
>
>

Re: Duplicate Administrator accounts by Roger

Roger
Wed May 23 13:36:14 CDT 2007

Thanks for the reply with added info.
Here is what I am thinking is going on, but how to get out of
this situation I am not quite sure, well, at least not if you have
only one machine (if you have another, networked, and the
firewall is permissive on the troublesome XP Pro, then maybe).

In XP one can log in with either the account or the name. For
example, I define an account "someaccount" and for the name
I provide "somename", then either may be used to login.
So, I am guessing you have an account Admin (perhaps), and
you gave it the name Administrator. Then, when you try to log
in with Administrator it is using the Admin account.

The problem comes in that either login method for XP Pro
(Welcome screen, which would show Administrator, the name,
for the Admin account; or entry of cntrl-alt-del-del to get the
old login dialog) will use the name or the account.


"still learning ...." <stilllearning@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in
message news:6957C0C1-2205-4DA9-92BF-48C55AECBC60@microsoft.com...
> thank you for your interest..
> Result of net localgroup .....is
> "Alias name administrators
> comment Administrators have complete and ....
> Members
> -----------
> Administrator
>
> echo %homepath% is \Documents and Settings\Admin
>
> Windows XP Pro
>
> "msnews mvp" wrote:
>
>> So you are saying that you have two accounts, both of which are named
>> Administrator ? And that one is and one is not member of Administrators,
>> but, although you know the password for the one that is a member of the
>> Administrators group you cannot log into that account because login is
>> always happening using the non-admin account.
>>
>> When logged in, what is the result from, at a cmd prompt, running
>> net localgroup administrators
>> and from running
>> echo %homepath%
>>
>> What is the OS and is this machine domain joined?
>>
>> Roger
>>
>> "still learning ...." <still learning ....@discussions.microsoft.com>
>> wrote
>> in message news:C98E5527-86E6-4CA5-B0E1-A1ABC3499D61@microsoft.com...
>> >I have accidentally created an "administrator" account which doesn't
>> >have
>> > administrator privileges. When i try to log on as administrator I end
>> > up
>> > logged onto the wrong one and i can't find any way of really logging on
>> > as
>> > administrator. No other account belongs to the administrator group so
>> > I'm
>> > in
>> > trouble
>>
>>
>>




Re: Duplicate Administrator accounts by stilllearning

stilllearning
Thu May 24 00:36:01 CDT 2007

Thanks - that's pretty much what I suspected (dreaded).

What about if I changed the Registry for automatic Admin logon - does that
put any more rigor on the username?

It looks like I'll have to reinstall windows and all my software... is there
a way of making a copy of the software to save having to find all the cds? If
I used Norton Ghost .. I'd end up where I am now I guess?
thanks again

"Roger Abell [MVP]" wrote:

> Thanks for the reply with added info.
> Here is what I am thinking is going on, but how to get out of
> this situation I am not quite sure, well, at least not if you have
> only one machine (if you have another, networked, and the
> firewall is permissive on the troublesome XP Pro, then maybe).
>
> In XP one can log in with either the account or the name. For
> example, I define an account "someaccount" and for the name
> I provide "somename", then either may be used to login.
> So, I am guessing you have an account Admin (perhaps), and
> you gave it the name Administrator. Then, when you try to log
> in with Administrator it is using the Admin account.
>
> The problem comes in that either login method for XP Pro
> (Welcome screen, which would show Administrator, the name,
> for the Admin account; or entry of cntrl-alt-del-del to get the
> old login dialog) will use the name or the account.
>
>
> "still learning ...." <stilllearning@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in
> message news:6957C0C1-2205-4DA9-92BF-48C55AECBC60@microsoft.com...
> > thank you for your interest..
> > Result of net localgroup .....is
> > "Alias name administrators
> > comment Administrators have complete and ....
> > Members
> > -----------
> > Administrator
> >
> > echo %homepath% is \Documents and Settings\Admin
> >
> > Windows XP Pro
> >
> > "msnews mvp" wrote:
> >
> >> So you are saying that you have two accounts, both of which are named
> >> Administrator ? And that one is and one is not member of Administrators,
> >> but, although you know the password for the one that is a member of the
> >> Administrators group you cannot log into that account because login is
> >> always happening using the non-admin account.
> >>
> >> When logged in, what is the result from, at a cmd prompt, running
> >> net localgroup administrators
> >> and from running
> >> echo %homepath%
> >>
> >> What is the OS and is this machine domain joined?
> >>
> >> Roger
> >>
> >> "still learning ...." <still learning ....@discussions.microsoft.com>
> >> wrote
> >> in message news:C98E5527-86E6-4CA5-B0E1-A1ABC3499D61@microsoft.com...
> >> >I have accidentally created an "administrator" account which doesn't
> >> >have
> >> > administrator privileges. When i try to log on as administrator I end
> >> > up
> >> > logged onto the wrong one and i can't find any way of really logging on
> >> > as
> >> > administrator. No other account belongs to the administrator group so
> >> > I'm
> >> > in
> >> > trouble
> >>
> >>
> >>
>
>
>
>

Re: Duplicate Administrator accounts by Roger

Roger
Thu May 24 02:51:30 CDT 2007


"still learning ...." <stilllearning@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in
message news:6EC3BCA8-26B7-4552-8317-748E8D4C0522@microsoft.com...
> Thanks - that's pretty much what I suspected (dreaded).
>
> What about if I changed the Registry for automatic Admin logon - does that
> put any more rigor on the username?
>

You would likely need admin privileges to do that.

> It looks like I'll have to reinstall windows and all my software... is
> there
> a way of making a copy of the software to save having to find all the cds?
> If
> I used Norton Ghost .. I'd end up where I am now I guess?
> thanks again
>

So, after thinking a little, it occurred to me that what you have been
describing implies that the two accounts have the same password.

So, I have come up with two things to try (apparently lacking second
machine, network, and lack of firewall on problem machine).
One is to change the password of the account that you can log into.
The other is to try to login via runas with the real administrator account.
At start / run enter
runas /u:administrator cmd
If that works, then you need to see which account is actually in use,
such as by issuing "set" without the "s in the cmd window.
If you have the real administrator account enter compmgmt.msc and
drill into the users and alter the Full Name of the non-admin account,
and perhaps define a new account and add it to Administrators so
that in future you have two admin accounts available.

Roger


> "Roger Abell [MVP]" wrote:
>
>> Thanks for the reply with added info.
>> Here is what I am thinking is going on, but how to get out of
>> this situation I am not quite sure, well, at least not if you have
>> only one machine (if you have another, networked, and the
>> firewall is permissive on the troublesome XP Pro, then maybe).
>>
>> In XP one can log in with either the account or the name. For
>> example, I define an account "someaccount" and for the name
>> I provide "somename", then either may be used to login.
>> So, I am guessing you have an account Admin (perhaps), and
>> you gave it the name Administrator. Then, when you try to log
>> in with Administrator it is using the Admin account.
>>
>> The problem comes in that either login method for XP Pro
>> (Welcome screen, which would show Administrator, the name,
>> for the Admin account; or entry of cntrl-alt-del-del to get the
>> old login dialog) will use the name or the account.
>>
>>
>> "still learning ...." <stilllearning@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in
>> message news:6957C0C1-2205-4DA9-92BF-48C55AECBC60@microsoft.com...
>> > thank you for your interest..
>> > Result of net localgroup .....is
>> > "Alias name administrators
>> > comment Administrators have complete and ....
>> > Members
>> > -----------
>> > Administrator
>> >
>> > echo %homepath% is \Documents and Settings\Admin
>> >
>> > Windows XP Pro
>> >
>> > "msnews mvp" wrote:
>> >
>> >> So you are saying that you have two accounts, both of which are named
>> >> Administrator ? And that one is and one is not member of
>> >> Administrators,
>> >> but, although you know the password for the one that is a member of
>> >> the
>> >> Administrators group you cannot log into that account because login is
>> >> always happening using the non-admin account.
>> >>
>> >> When logged in, what is the result from, at a cmd prompt, running
>> >> net localgroup administrators
>> >> and from running
>> >> echo %homepath%
>> >>
>> >> What is the OS and is this machine domain joined?
>> >>
>> >> Roger
>> >>
>> >> "still learning ...." <still learning ....@discussions.microsoft.com>
>> >> wrote
>> >> in message news:C98E5527-86E6-4CA5-B0E1-A1ABC3499D61@microsoft.com...
>> >> >I have accidentally created an "administrator" account which doesn't
>> >> >have
>> >> > administrator privileges. When i try to log on as administrator I
>> >> > end
>> >> > up
>> >> > logged onto the wrong one and i can't find any way of really logging
>> >> > on
>> >> > as
>> >> > administrator. No other account belongs to the administrator group
>> >> > so
>> >> > I'm
>> >> > in
>> >> > trouble
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>>
>>
>>
>>