jimmuh

You'd have to provide quite a bit more information for me to be sure, but I'm
guessing that Owner is your regular account. And it is an administrative
account. (You can check in User Accounts in the Control Panel to be sure.)
Guest is, of course, the default Guest account, and it normally shouldn't be
enabled. Administrator isn't showing up because you never (I hope) activated
it and logged into it. You don't have to enter a password because you never
created one. And you can't create an account called "Administrator" because
there already IS an account with that name -- the built-in Administrator
account.

I can't really know this, because, as I said, you haven't given us enough
information. But if you didn't take special steps to activate the built-in
Administrator account, then I'm betting my guess is accurate. The only way
you could accidentally wander into using the Administrator account in Vista
is if the original installation of the OS was botched -- badly. So, if
neither you nor anyone else deliberately activated that Administrator account
(It's not something you do by making a couple of moves with the mouse.), I'm
thinking you're safe.

In order to activate the built-in admin account you would have had to issue
a command from an Administrator-run CLI, or you would have had to use the
compmgmt.msc console, or you would have had to use a special feature of the
unattended install process. If you didn't do those, then you're probably okay.

BTW, I just realized that you could just go to Start | Run, enter
"compmgmt.msc", and hit the Enter key. If you expand Local Users and Groups
in the left pane of the console and select Users, in the right pane of the
window you should see ALL of your user accounts -- including the built-in
Administrator account. I should have thought of that before. The only thing
is that I don't know whether or not you're using one of the "crippled"
versions of Vista. I've never looked at those, the ones that don't have
policy editors. I don't know if they also don't have some version of the
computer management console.

Please check it out and let us know either way. If you don't find what
you're looking for please post back with information about your Vista version
and the exact steps you took in configuring this system.

"Kcpirana" wrote:

> Guest & Owner are the only two accounts listed. In addition, the box for
> requiring user name and password is checked, but I don't enter a password.
> I don't think I even set one up.
>
> Kristy
>
> "jimmuh" <jimmuh@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:C4668D47-4B6C-4451-8DB7-F8C4FBA8F4A3@microsoft.com...
> > I'm thinking you may not be in as much of a predicament as you think you
> > are.
> >
> > We need a little information. Go to Start | Run. type "control
> > userpasswords2" in the Open field, and hit the Enter key. Make a list of
> > the
> > accounts that are listed there, and come back to tell us what they are.
> >
> > i'm thinking that your "renamed" Administrator account is really a
> > different
> > administrative account that you gave a name to when it was automatically
> > created for you. And your original built-in Administrator account is
> > probably
> > okay. It isn't active by default, so you would have had to do something to
> > activate it deliberately to be able to be logging on to it as your regular
> > user account. It couldn't have happened by accident. Well, not likely,
> > anyway.
> >
> >
> >
> > "Kcpirana" wrote:
> >
> >> I'm not sure if I've really messed something up or not. When I was
> >> setting
> >> up my computer, I forgot to set up a new account for myself and I've
> >> completely customized, installed to, and am using the Administrator
> >> account
> >> as my primary account. Is there anyway to duplicate this account (so I
> >> don't have to start from scratch) and then how would I restore this one
> >> to
> >> the use for which it was intended? Or can I create a new administrator
> >> account? I tried to do that, but it wouldn't let me name an account
> >> "Administrator" as it was already in use. When I logged off and back on,
> >> however, it only showed the account that I renamed with my name.
> >>
> >> Kristy
> >>
> >>
>
>