admin rights in XP home 1

[ramrags]

I know this is a pro forum but my trouble is in xp home. I do some work for a small co. that is running xp home on two computers and the owner of the co. thinks he knows about computers. I had the users set up as limited with an owner account as the administrator. He tried to install a program which he didn’t have rights to do but instead of logging on as the admin. He changed his account type, and he did this a couple of times and he wants to keep his account as an admin. Now we're having trouble with the account, windows sees this account as a computer admin. but when you try to do thing like add/remove programs from this account it tells me I don't have permission to do that try logging on as an admin and try again. Even if you log on in safe mode it shows this account on the logon screen so it looks like it is an administrator but it don't seem like it has all the rights. Does anyone have any thoughts on how I get out of admin. limbo. Thanks for any help you can give. Tom

 

[bcastner]

Be certain only Add/Remove is effected. There may be restrictions for example on Ctrl-Alt-Del to access Task manager.

Open notepad and copy/paste the below as admin.reg :

-------- start copy/paste below this line
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Uninstall]
"NoAddRemovePrograms"=dword:00000001
"NoRemovePage"=dword:00000001
"NoAddPage"=dword:00000001
"NoWindowsSetupPage"=dword:00000001
"NoAddfromCDorFloppy"=dword:00000001
"NoAddfromInternet"=dword:00000001
"NoAddfromNetwork"=dword:00000001
"NoServices"=dword:00000001
"NoSupportInfo"=dword:00000001

-------- end copy/paste above this line

Save the file and double click to merge with your registry. Reboot and test again.

 

[bcastner]

Let me take the opportunity to say something about the Administrator account under XP, and particularly under XP Home.

When you install XP Home it creates a default account named "Owner." Leave this alone.

All versions of XP unless you fiddle with it will always have a "true" Administrator. Under XP Home, or XP Pro with 'Use simple file sharing enabled - Recommended' checkmarked (it is by default other than in a Domain), the only access to this true Aministrator account is by Safe Mode (for XP Home), or for XP Pro you can fiddle to add the account to the Welcome Screen logon or Ctrl-Alt-Del to use the Security Console logon method.

For XP Home you need to be particularly carefull as some XP Pro features are in fact available for user account management. For example, control userpasswords2 does work under XP Home, and if you fiddle with the accounts using this applet you may well be looking at a clean install.

 

[bcastner]

Let me make this stonger:

For XP Home you need to be particularly carefull as some XP Pro features are in fact available for user account management. For example, control userpasswords2 does work under XP Home, and if you fiddle with the accounts using this applet you may well be looking at a clean install.

The fact that lusrmgr.msc or control userpasswords2 are available in certain circumstances is an unintended bug in XP Home. You can easily, particularly with Group assignment editing, lead to a situation in which you will be forced to do a clean installation to fix things. And by a clean installation, I mean a complete wipe of your hard disk drive.

 

[bcastner]

I also noticed I screwed up the registry edit:

-------- start copy/paste below this line
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Uninstall]
"NoAddRemovePrograms"=dword:00000001
"NoRemovePage"=dword:00000001
"NoAddPage"=dword:00000001
"NoWindowsSetupPage"=dword:00000001
"NoAddfromCDorFloppy"=dword:00000001
"NoAddfromInternet"=dword:00000001
"NoAddfromNetwork"=dword:00000001
"NoServices"=dword:00000001
"NoSupportInfo"=dword:00000001 

-------- end copy/paste above this line

 

[linney]

How To Reset Security Settings Back to the Defaults

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=313222

If they have a NTFS partition try these links to beef up Home to something more configurable.

http://www.dougknox.com/xp/utils/xp_securityconsole.htm

http://www.dougknox.com/xp/tips/xp_home_sectab.htm

 

[bcastner]

linney,

The reset to defaults unfortunately only applies to XP Pro, not Home. How I wish for something that simple for Win2k as well.

Bill

 

[linney]

Thank you for the correction. Much appreciated.

 

[ramrags]

Thanks for the replies I'll give it a try, let you know what happens, Thanks again. Tom