I had an Admin account for a programme that 'required' to be run as an Admin at all times. I don't have it anymore, so I thought I'd delete the Admin account as I wouldn't need it again. It was created through the cmd line.
So I proceeded to reverse what I done to create the account.
Ha! The 'yes' button in UAC box is now greyed out at every cut & turn., anywhere where I have to answer yes to do or change something, install software, I can't do it; the button is not there, in fact anything and everything, I tried to do a system restore, couldn't do that, either. It is still asking for an administrator password, mind you…. I have restarted the pc. Totally switched it off/on again. Makes no difference
In essence, seems my pc is absolutely useless at the minute. Thought it was time to ask for some help, please.
Sorry this is so long winded, but I thought I'd better explain the situation. Thanks for reading and in advance for any help offered.
My name is Satchfan and I would be glad to help you with your computer problem.
Please read the following guidelines which will help to make cleaning your machine easier:
please follow all instructions in the order posted
please continue to review my answers until I tell you your machine appears to be clear. Absence of symptoms does not mean that everything is clear
all logs/reports, etc. must be posted in Notepad. Please ensure that word wrap is unchecked. In Notepad click Format, uncheck Word wrap if it is checked
if you don't understand something, please don't hesitate to ask for clarification before proceeding
the fixes are specific to your problem and should only be used for this issue on this machine.
please reply within 3 days. If you do not reply within this period I will post a reminder but topics with no reply in 4 days will be closed!
IMPORTANT:
Please DO NOT install/uninstall any programs unless asked to.
Please DO NOT run any scans other than those requested
Please download Farbar Recovery Scan Tool and save it to your Desktop.
Note: You need to run the version compatible with your system. If you are not sure which version applies to your system download both of them and try to run them. Only one of them will run on your system, that will be the right version.
right click to run as administrator (XP users click run after receipt of Windows Security Warning - Open File). When the tool opens click Yes to disclaimer.
press Scan button
it will produce a log called Frst.txt in the same directory the tool is run from
please copy and paste log back here.
the first time the tool is run it generates another log (Addition.txt - also located in the same directory as FRST.exe/FRST64.exe). Please also paste that along with the Frst.txt into your reply.
I had an Admin account for a programme that 'required' to be run as an Admin at all times. I don't have it anymore, so I thought I'd delete the Admin account as I wouldn't need it again. It was created through the cmd line.
So I proceeded to reverse what I done to create the account.
Ha! The 'yes' button in UAC box is now greyed out at every cut & turn., anywhere where I have to answer yes to do or change something, install software, I can't do it; the button is not there, in fact anything and everything, I tried to do a system restore, couldn't do that, either. It is still asking for an administrator password, mind you…. I have restarted the pc. Totally switched it off/on again. Makes no difference
In essence, seems my pc is absolutely useless at the minute.
What is your current account, and Administrator account or a Standard account? If it's Standard that would explain why you can't do any admin type things.
Do you have any other Administrator level accounts? If not you need to enabled the hidden Administrator account: See Option 5 here:
Hi Ztrucker, Still on Windows 7, for my sins. It was my intentions to upgrade to 10 that caused this spat in the first place. If I'd known creating an Administrator account in this manner caused such chaos, I wouldn't have bothered. Undoing it isn't as straight forward as the instructions would lead you to believe.
Does the same information you have given here apply for Windows 7?
Hi, used method 1 of this recovery and it gave some interesting results. Not in my favour, I might add. I have 4 internal hard drives, and 2 DVD re-writers in all. One drive is used entirely for windows. The others are partitioned off for whatever information they are going to hold. On entering the commands, first of all, there were letters showing that I hadn't set when partitioning drives and letters not showing that I did set when I partitioning drives. The only thing referring to windows was 100 MB SYS RES on a completely different partition to where windows should obviously be and all other partitions showed as 465 GB, including the C: drive which is definitely wrong. When finished with the command prompt there was nothing to close out of it with, other than closing the PC down at the tower. Because I still haven't resolved my problem I still can't get into my PC to use administrative tools to check the drives to see exactly what is on them. I might be wrong, but according to the command prompt, I don't have windows on my pc, but I'm here talking to you, so it must be somewhere? Granted, it takes about 10 mins for the pc to warm up and be ready to use. Ideally, I'd like to be back where I was 3-4 months ago before I installed the Administrator account in the first place, but beggars can't be choosers, I suppose. Enough ranting, is there anything else I can try to fix this, do you think? Thanks for the help hedley
Remember, you were booted from WinRE, not your normal OS so the drivers letters are going to be different.
I would disconnect all internal drives except the boot drive then follow the procedure, Method II, see if it makes more sense.
Step 1 is to open a Command Prompt when you boot a Windows 7 installation disc or flash drive then press Shift+F10 when either of the next screens in the How to Open a Command Prompt at Boot in Windows 7 tutorial links to from the first tutorial.
Next start regedit and follow instructions. Should be fairly straight forward from there.
9. Close box,the whole regedit and restart computer.
10. Log on to built-in Administrator account. Now you can try to fix problems - fix your account, reset password for your account or create new admin account, change account type from Standard to Administrator, etc.
Hi, thanks for the reply. Ok, when I ran method 1, it said my drive was X. As it so happens, I have a BD-ROM on my pc, which when I brought up the properties said it contained my C: drive; one of my internal hard drives, (which according to my pc is where windows now is); another internal hard drive; 2 x 1 TB External hard drives; and both my optical DVD drives. I can't bring up a command prompt on running the windows disk, so I tried the repair option. It says windows is on disk L:, which is part of one of the internal hard drives now showing to be on X: Because of the very unexpected death of my partner almost 2 years ago, I haven't been using this pc for that amount of time until November past and it was only on adding the Administrator account that seemed to mess everything up, but I didn't think windows would move, certainly not of their own volition and I don't think I did anything to trigger that or my drives moving to the Blu-ray Rom Disk. Have never come across this before. Don't know about you, but I'm really in a muddle! How should I proceed from here, please? Thanks for the help. hedley
OPTION ONE
To Open a Command Prompt at Boot 1. Boot from either your Windows 7 installation disc or Windows 7 System Repair Disc, and press Shift + F10 when at either screen below.
Hi, thanks for help, so far. Yes, I wasn't able to get a command prompt window open using Shift+F10, but have now got the hang of it. I have finally pinned Windows 7 down and it has definitely moved. No longer on my C: drive, but on a partitioned drive which my pc has named X; that's the one I explained is in the Blu-ray of my DVD Rewriter. (All double-dutch to me). Anyway, probably because of that fact, and not having a proper letter to work on, when using method II all I got at the end of using the Command Prompt was 'Cannot load X:\Windows\System32\config\SAM. The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process'. Do you have anything to suggest? While on the subject how did these drives ever get into this Blu-Ray partition, which I never even knew existed until now? Better still, how do I get them out! Sorry for all the questions! Thanks for the help. hedley
Hi Ztrucker, Just to add that this is the hidden Administrator account I'm talking about and not the standard Administrator account. If I'd known the standard Admin account was all I needed for that programme I spoke of, I'd never have gone anywhere near the hidden one. Of course, didn't know that was what it was at the time!!! Sorry if I should have mentioned this before. hedley
Sorry, I've been sick for several days so not using the internet. Back now though.
Can you get to a Command Prompt again and use diskpart to list your disks and partitions? Remember, should have all internal drives except the boot drive disconnected so they are not seen AT ALL.
From the Command Prompt, enter the following
diskpart
list disk
list vol
sel disk 0
list par
detail disk
exit
list disk should only show you one disk which should be 0. If it's not 0, use the disk number it shows.
You select it (sel disk 0) then list it's partitions (list par).
Lastly you get the details of the disk.
Now at the top of the Command Prompt window, right click on the title bar, click on Edit then Select All.
Right click on the title bar again and select Edit then Copy.
Paste that text you just copied in a code box in a reply here (the small blue <> less than/greater than symbols).
Hi Ztrucker, Just to add that this is the hidden Administrator account I'm talking about and not the standard Administrator account. If I'd known the standard Admin account was all I needed for that programme I spoke of, I'd never have gone anywhere near the hidden one. Of course, didn't know that was what it was at the time!!! Sorry if I should have mentioned this before.
hedley
The hidden Admi9nistrator account is normally (surprise) hidden. You enabled it by entering net user administrator /active:yes from another Administrator level account. You hide it again by entering net user administrator /active:no.
Not sure what you were doing with UAC as nothing needs to be done the to enable or disable the hidden Administrator account.
✨ Ask AI
AI can make mistakes. Check the cited posts. Archived advice can be out-of-date
Don't include personal information. Questions and selected public posts go to OpenAI. About Ask AI
