Windows Vista cannot enable built-in Administrator account

PoohJoon

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Nov 2, 2009
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Hello,
Firstly, I am fairly technologically apt, but am certainly worlds away from being well versed in IT.

I run Vista Ultimate on a Dell laptop, and I have been unable to edit or remove any of the multiple user accounts I no longer need. I will also mention that the laptop has 2 drives, C and D - D is the default drive for Vista. This laptop also still has XP installed on it (incidentally, I cannot figure out how to uninstall it?)

I am logged in as the Guest Admin acct (not the built in Admin because it is disabled). Via Control Panel I go to Manage Other User Accounts, select the one I want, select delete, it goes through the motions of asking me if I want to keep or delete the files, then confirms if I am sure I want to delete, I confirm, it thinks for a minute then goes back to the user management screen, but the account is not deleted. No error messages.

I thought maybe I need to be logged in as the built in Administrator, so I tried enabling it.

Via command prompt: (click the start menu > type cmd in search bar (don't hit enter) > cmd will show in the list on top .. right click on it and click to run as administrator > type net user administrator /active:yes in cmd panel > hit enter and it should tell you it completed successfully* > close the cmd panel and log off of windows > when you log back on you should have a new Admin log on**)
* it does not say that, it says instead:
"System error 5 has occured. Access is denied."

** and there is no Admin log in on the log in screen

Then I tried enabling it via the User Management Console (Open the MMC console and select Local Users and Groups >Right-click the Administrator account and select Properties > On the General tab, clear the Account is Disabled check box). When I try to Apply or even just Save, I get error "Access denied."

I am at a loss and frustrated - any suggestions?

Many thanks
 


Solution
Hi,
At the risk of sounding daft, can you direct me to more detailed directions for this process?
Thanks a bunch!

You need a windows install disk or bootable USB device

Set your bios boot priority to boot to it... like you are going to do a clean install.

When it boots it may try to do a repair or an install... cancle that and go to custom and find the advanced option

under the advanced options is the Command Prompt option

at the command prompt find the drive you installed windows 7 to ... usually c or d
You can run the command dir c: and dir d:

If you have more than one driver you can distinguish the drive that has your OS by the amount of space reported by dir and the list of files that are...
Last edited:
It may make a difference, but the colonYes is not needed.
 


Just boot from the install disk and go to command prompt and you can do about anything you want to do. I do this when I want to xcopy (backup) all new files found in User profiles folder without getting hundreds of restriction messages... or going to all specific folders individually... like photos, music, documents... etc.
 




Hi there, yes it is a dual boot, I get prompted for whether I want to run XP or Vista when I boot up. Id like to uninstall XP because it is taking up valuable disc space and I don't have the password for it anymore anyway so can't access it.
Thanks!
 


Just boot from the install disk and go to command prompt and you can do about anything you want to do. I do this when I want to xcopy (backup) all new files found in User profiles folder without getting hundreds of restriction messages... or going to all specific folders individually... like photos, music, documents... etc.


Hi,
At the risk of sounding daft, can you direct me to more detailed directions for this process?
Thanks a bunch!
 


Hi,
At the risk of sounding daft, can you direct me to more detailed directions for this process?
Thanks a bunch!

You need a windows install disk or bootable USB device

Set your bios boot priority to boot to it... like you are going to do a clean install.

When it boots it may try to do a repair or an install... cancle that and go to custom and find the advanced option

under the advanced options is the Command Prompt option

at the command prompt find the drive you installed windows 7 to ... usually c or d
You can run the command dir c: and dir d:

If you have more than one driver you can distinguish the drive that has your OS by the amount of space reported by dir and the list of files that are displayed.

Go to that drive by entering C: or D: or the correct drive letter.

enter cd\users to change to your user profiles and delet the specific user folders you want to get rid of. You may need to google and read up on some dos commands


There may be an easier method do delete user profiles from Windows.... using the commands takeown and icacls ... check my last blog for details. It should allow you to delete user folders but I haven't tested it.
 


Solution
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