Can't logon as Administrator - XP Home

[TheAggie]

One of my systems at home is an XP Home machine with an NTFS hard drive.

I recently had a problem where I had to logon as Administrator - someting I haven't done in a while. I logged everyone off (I use fast user switching) then did the double ctrl-alt-del thing and tried to logon as Administrator. This resulted in the message "Unable to log you on because of an account restriction". I have verified the password is correct - booted into safe mode and it worked fine. Also I tried resetting it with a password reset disk.

I have done the "control userpasswords2" to get to the old style account manager but what I can find there isn't that usefull and the Advanced User Management is disabled for XP Home.

I was thinking it could be something wild like the account was disabled or the systems policies or something but can't figure out how to check that out on XP Home.

This not the first time I've run into something that is part of XP Pro that XP Home hides and when it gets messed up it is unclear how to get it back.

Mark

Anybody have any ideas???

 

[Netherbeast]

If you have NO seperate accounts made, then the Administrator login is available but if you create a second user and set it to administrator privilages, the administrator account will be disabled since there is another administrator. One way to get back the administrator account is to delete the other users.

Hope that helps.

 

[markemark]

or change the way you log on to use ctrl alt and del like NT4/win2k

 

[linney]

See if these help you.

290109 - Error Message: Unable to Log You on Because of an Account Restriction

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;290109&FR=1&PA=1&SD=HSCH

Display Administrator Account on logon Screen
thread779-423121

 

[bcastner]

I wish I still had a Home to test things, but I suspect that the following are true, and I would love to be corrected:

1. In Home, the only official way to logon as the true Administrator is in Safe Mode. You can double-hit Ctrl-Alt-Delete, make control userpasswords2 entries until you turn blue in the face, but the supported access to the true local Administrator account is only available in Safe Mode.

2. I cannot test this alas, but it seems to me possible (underline under Home possible) that if you enable Fast User Switching, Use the Welcome Screen logon, enable passwords and use them for all users, and follow linney's last link above, you can get the true Administrator to appear on the Welcome screen. But you will never be able to do username "Administrator" logon through the Security logon.

3. The two main reasons for wanting true "Administrator" logon can be handled without the need for safe mode:

. You want to see all "hidden" devices under Device Manager. Setting in System Properties, Advanced, Environment Variables, a new variable is the best way to achieve this in the alternative:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;315539

. You want to use the security tab to set NTFS permissions on drives, folders, files. See my "Cool Tip #2" from a short while ago: thread779-685055

 

[TheAggie]

Thanks For all your info. It explains everything I have been seeing.

XP Home came with my dell and (IMHO) has been way better than any of the 9x OS's but it is difficult at times to administer. It tries to hide the underlying NT but when things like file ownership or ACLs gets messed up it fails to provide a way to discover what the problem is or how to fix it.

Bcaster, yes I found the security tab trick and have already installed it and it has helped a lot with an annoying problem I have. Somehow when I upload files from my digital camera sometimes the security settings on some of the files get messed setup as private. This means that my wife then complains she can't get to some of the pictures ("Honey, some of the pictures we took are missing...&quot. This didn't used to happen but now it seems to happen often.

Note that I remember logging onto Administrator from the login screen sometime in the past by using the double-ctrl-alt-del trick but something changed and that no longer works. I think that was on this system but I may recall incorrectly. I have been running XP Home and Pro on several systems since OSR2. Right now it is not my biggest issue.

Thanks,
Mark