I previously had set up Vista on my laptop so that both userids had administrator rights. That's changed (I don't know how because I certainly didn't do it - Windows auto update I suspect !) and the user group for both is now "debugger users". When I try to change it back to administrator I get "access denied".

I've tried starting in safe mode but it won't let me enable the hidden administrator account. My laptop came only with a recovery DVD and I don't seem to be able to boot from that without wiping the disk. Clearly I don't want to do that !



How can I recover my admin privileges please ?

Originally Posted by davidmalloch

I previously had set up Vista on my laptop so that both userids had administrator rights. That's changed (I don't know how because I certainly didn't do it - Windows auto update I suspect !) and the user group for both is now "debugger users". When I try to change it back to administrator I get "access denied".

I've tried starting in safe mode but it won't let me enable the hidden administrator account. My laptop came only with a recovery DVD and I don't seem to be able to boot from that without wiping the disk. Clearly I don't want to do that !

How can I recover my admin privileges please ?

Try to enable buildin admin by using one of them methods:

METHOD 1
User Account Password - Change from Win RE

METHOD 2
How to Enable System Administrator
No Administrator Account

METHOD 3
Tools for reseting password also have option to enable/disable accounts (for built-in admin also) for example Offline NT Password & Registry Editor
If you have been degraded to limited user you can also use this tool to add yourself to Administrators group

Option 1 failed so tried option 2. I managed to download the recovery CD image and write it on a friend's PC (couldn't install Imgburn without administrator's rights !). I then managed to boot from that CD and then solved the problem using option 2 in the link below. Many thanks for your help.

What do I do: I can no longer log in or elevate to an administrator account