Is there a way to use the administrator account in normal mode in XP Home?

[NRJ]

I thought my user account had all the privilege, but I guess not. I can't disable auto-update of windows with this user. the options are grayed out. Plus I forgot how to change that in safe mode.

 

[russ]

You can go to "start-> logoff" then logon as administrator.

 

[NRJ]

it wont allow me

 

[Jaso555]

This one was edited for a double post sry.

 

[Jaso555]

The best way to login as the administrator would be to go into safe mode by hitting the f8 key right after the BIOS screen. Once windows loads it will give you the option to login in with any user accounts you have or as the administrator. (Side note... This will also show you if you have a password on the administrator account or not. If you click the administrator account and it does not prompt for a password you would probably want to create one in Control panel/users, to close up the security hole.) The only other way that I know of to get the administrator account to show up in normal mode is to remove all users accounts from the pc and when the administrator account is the only one left it will allow you to login in normal mode. This would probably not be what you would want to do though, it would be easiest to just turn off the options in safe mode. I am sure there is another way to get into the administrator account in normal mode but I do not know it. If someone decides to enlighten me it would be appreciated.

 

[Blakhart]

Time to create a standard admin account so you don't have to go to safemode for simple housekeeping.

 

[Jaso555]

That of course would be a great idea to, when you are in the admin account looking at users.

 

[NRJ]

I thought my account had all the privilage of and admin account, but I guess not. Going to safe mode to do change. I know how to go on safe mode. I dont know how to get more privilege to my account which is already belongs to a computer admin account.

 

[Jaso555]

Once you are in safe mode as the administrator you can go to control panel and then to users. Once in here click your normal user account and select the options to make it a computer administrator. If this is not working you can also go to the start menu, run, type in mmc and hit enter. Go to the top and click file , add/remove snap-in. From here click add and select the computer management option. In computer management you can select users and add your user to the administrator account.

 

[Blakhart]

Unless you have an app that refuses to work in a limited account, you should not perform daily tasks as admin. Running as admin leaves you wide open to whatever you click on. I always have two accounts, one a admin, and one for online/limited. I browse with the online/limited account only, and have never found an app that wouldn't run as limited. One thing to keep in mind is that whenever you want to install or delete anything in your limited account, change it over to admin for the time it takes you to make your changes, run the app and make any settings changes you want, then change it back to limited. This should also apply to any prefs or settings changes you want to make stick in your apps.

 

[NRJ]

or u can use the option like "run as admin". I used to do that a lot in w2k pro without logging off.