Windows 7 'Ghost' User Account

[LinusF]

On my Win7 Pro 64 bit I have somehow picked up a ghost account. The splash screen and the account manager show the same three accounts: Administrator, [me] & Guest. But the Task Manager and other tools shows that "mishmash" is the user and [me] never is. This causes some obvious issues in running applications. "Mishmash" was used once as a foldername for an eclectic collection of folders/files of another machine, temporarily housed on this machine while the other machine was upgraded from XP to Win7. This machine was also upgraded afterwards and "mishmash" may have been on one of its hard drives still. It is long gone in any event. How can an unregistered user exist? How to get rid of it? Is this a rather large security problem?
All help appreciated.

 

[Trouble]

Click the start orb, right click computer, choose manage. In the resultant window in the left column expand Local Users and Groups, select/highlight Users and in the right pane look to see if there is anything there, either under the name or full name column that shows the mishmash name.

 

[LinusF]

Yes. Under Users I have 5 entries: Administrator (full name: blank)), Guest (blank), HomeGroupuser$ (HomeGroupuser$), [me] (ADMIN), mishmash ([me])

 

[Trouble]

Then you can make the needed edits there to reflect your needs.
Edit the full name by double clicking the account
Edit the username by right clicking and choosing rename.
If you are really concerned about security you might want to take this opportunity to reset the user password by right clicking the account and choosing it from the context menu.

 

[msteem]

I am a newbie to this site and i have the same problem, but when i open the console the local users and groups is not there. it has computer management local and under it system tools, storage, and services and applications. when i open the help it also says that this should be there bet it isn't. the problem is with the quest account and it is affecting how my computer runs can you help please.

 

[Trouble]

msteem:
Hello and welcome to the forums.
The advice above was given to that member based on the fact the he was running Windows 7 Pro.
The availability of some MMC(s) (Microsoft Management Consoles) depends on the version of Windows 7 you are using.
So if you are unable to launch the Local Users and Groups Management Console (lusrmgr.msc) then it's probably because you are using Home Premium or Basic or Starter.
If you can provide some specifics as to your particular problem perhaps someone may have some information that may help. You have mentioned a reference to the local guest account, which is normally disabled by default for security reasons. You may want to take a look at this article and see if it helps with your question.
Turn the guest account on or off