Delete Administrator Account in XP Pro.

[bdmc200]

Enabling a disabled Admin account

I recently had the same problem, where I accidentally disabled my admin account. I had to install a patch to run Nero giving it access to the burners, and to cut a long story short I ended up with my admin account disabled and no way of logging back into my machine. Since the last few posts did not resolve this problem, and I am sure there are going to be others who will find themselves in the same predicament, I decided to share my experience and solution.
There are numerous hacks that can be used, and I would advise people against them. Instead, stick with XP and work through the problem. To restate the problem, if the admin account has been disabled (to the best of my knowledge there is no way to delete it completely!) you will come to the windows login without a login name. You can press ctrl+alt+delete twice to pull-up a log-in screen and when you type in “administrator” and enter your password (if you have one!) it will say “Your account has been disabled. Please contact your systems administrator.” Obviously you can’t go much further with this. Instead, re-start your machine and keep hitting F8 and enter safe mode with command prompt. You should be able to hit ctrl+alt+delete twice to pull up a log-in screen again and re-enter administrator and whatever password you may have. That will take you to a command prompt “C:\ documents and settings/administrator.” Now you are in business. Simply type “control” at the prompt and press enter. This should bring up a message that allows you to enter Windows recovery function, and it will also open the control panel. Click on Administrative Tools and then Local Security Policies to bring up the settings. On the left side bar you can select Local Policies and then Security Options and Enable the Administrator Account the same way you may have disabled it. Of course another possibility and perhaps simpler option is to revert back to an earlier setting using the recovery utility. I actually enabled my admin account, so I am not sure if recovery will fix the problem. I think it should.
Well, hope this helps anyone else who finds him/herself in this precarious position!
~Cavinda

I just like to thank you for the info. I was working on the problem for 2 weeks. Thanks again.

 

[1trader2]

I recently had the same problem, where I accidentally disabled my admin account. I had to install a patch to run Nero giving it access to the burners, and to cut a long story short I ended up with my admin account disabled and no way of logging back into my machine. Since the last few posts did not resolve this problem, and I am sure there are going to be others who will find themselves in the same predicament, I decided to share my experience and solution.
There are numerous hacks that can be used, and I would advise people against them. Instead, stick with XP and work through the problem. To restate the problem, if the admin account has been disabled (to the best of my knowledge there is no way to delete it completely!) you will come to the windows login without a login name. You can press ctrl+alt+delete twice to pull-up a log-in screen and when you type in “administrator” and enter your password (if you have one!) it will say “Your account has been disabled. Please contact your systems administrator.” Obviously you can’t go much further with this. Instead, re-start your machine and keep hitting F8 and enter safe mode with command prompt. You should be able to hit ctrl+alt+delete twice to pull up a log-in screen again and re-enter administrator and whatever password you may have. That will take you to a command prompt “C:\ documents and settings/administrator.” Now you are in business. Simply type “control” at the prompt and press enter. This should bring up a message that allows you to enter Windows recovery function, and it will also open the control panel. Click on Administrative Tools and then Local Security Policies to bring up the settings. On the left side bar you can select Local Policies and then Security Options and Enable the Administrator Account the same way you may have disabled it. Of course another possibility and perhaps simpler option is to revert back to an earlier setting using the recovery utility. I actually enabled my admin account, so I am not sure if recovery will fix the problem. I think it should.
Well, hope this helps anyone else who finds him/herself in this precarious position!
~Cavinda

Cavinda,

Just wanted to say thanks. Just wanted you to know that I did use the System Restore method and it work like a charm. What a headache though.

!Trader2

 

[nobody44]

I do not do this kind of thing but I HAD to tell Cavinda THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!!! It took 3 tries before F8 would work but this information was pure gold. It worked on this machine of mine. Thanks once again. I am keeping this website close.

 

[32eilrahc]

hello.. help pls. i created a new admin user account , so i have 2 admin user account already. the old one with my original settings and the new one. when i restarted my computer my old admin user was lost. my original setting is in that admin account. and when i log in on my new admin account my original setting was gone.. but i can still access my files from my old admin account.. so, what i wanted to do is to bring my old admin account with my original settings back. how can i do this?? please help.. tnx

 

[techmike]

I sorted this problem by first going into safe mode. when the windows screen is about to start keep pressing the CTRL+ALT+DEL buttons. This will bring up the logon dialog box. Type the administrator password and log on. From here you can enable the administrator account..

 

[Mediokrates]

deleted admin profile

hello all,
while cleaning out an infection, logged in as an admin in safety mode (2 admin accounts existed: Administrator and Girlfriend, I'm not positive which I was logged into, as neither has a password) I believe that I deleted the Administrator user profile folder located in "documents and settings." the problem is system restore was disabled in order to clean the infection.
upon restarting, i can no longer login into the Administrator account in safety mode. the computer hangs at loading saved settings.
when logged in under Girlfriend, all desktop and windows program settings are gone. All personal files are accessed through this account. they still exist on the drive.
the computer is slow, most programs don't work properly as ALL their settings are lost: ie, Internet Explorer, Word, Media Player
in "User Accounts" only Girlfriend exists (plus disabled Guest). but the Admin option still exists at safety mode login. Is there anyway to restore all my settings and defaults. Usually the computer runs with 41 programs, now only 32 are running, but it is so slow.
I am unable to access or even find the Recycle Bin, where this folder should be, despite the icon's appearance on the desktop.
would "Recuva" help with this?
any help would be appreciated.

 

[torontarian]

Thanks cavinda for your help, I thought I was in a deep sh**, until I read your post, which solved the problem....
Thanks again...

 

[Pauline]

"Instead, re-start your machine and keep hitting F8 and enter safe mode with command prompt. You should be able to hit ctrl+alt+delete twice to pull up a log-in screen again and re-enter administrator and whatever password you may have. That will take you to a command prompt “C:\ documents and settings/administrator.”
I have the same problem, i followed the steps that cavinda described but my computer could not recognize the admin account/password in the safe mode with command prompt....help!!!

 

[kvkeshavaarao]

Disabling / Enabling Administrator Account

First of all let me thank cavinda for his tip which worked excellently for me. But I used a slightly different method. Before that I want to explain how I landed up with blank log in screen on my computer.

I have a laptop for my official work which has MS Vista OS and a desktop at home running on MS XP Pro.

I came across an article on Vista O/s where it was mentioned that, by default, "administrator" account is disabled. It further said one could activate it by running the following command at the comand prompt (after running it as administrator by right mouse clicking): "net user administrator /active:yes"

I experimented with this on my laptop with Vista O/S. It worked well as expected. One can disable the account with "net user administrator /active:no"

I wanted to see if this will work in XP O/S also. Well it worked in disabling the account. Unfortunately, my experimentation went wrong at this juncture. As I did not have any alternate user account created, I faced a blank log in screen on rebooting after I disabled the administrator account.

I frantically searched the net for help. And was fortunate enough to find this article and solved my problem.

Only deviation from the process recommended by cavinda was to use "net user administrator /active:yes" command at command prompt after rebooting in safe mode as suggested by cavinda.

I hope this will help more o