Vista - Administrator account disabled...but it gets better!

Greetings all,
I have finally upgraded my XP MCE system to vista. I now discovered that the
administrator account is disabled, and after finding these newsgroups which
are very helpful. However I didn't happen to see this specific issue....
1. Admin acct disabled
2. Admin acct not accessible in safe mode. I get a message stating that the
computer cannot connect to the sens?
3. no other accounts on computer.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated....
any other than having to do a clean install, which might be what happens!

Thanks,
Scott

Hi Scott,

I was going to suggest Safe Mode, but not there to huh. I would do a clean install of Vista to fix it quicker. If your using a upgrade version, go here for details on how to do a clean install.

http://www.vistax64.com/tricks-n-tips/68767-clean-install.html

Hope this helps,
Shawn

Hello,

You may be able to fix this problem from the Windows Recovery Environment.

Since you are unable to log in to any account at all, you'll have to do
things the hard way. There is an easier way of doing this if you have
access to an account.

This is a technical procedure and so is somewhat difficult to describe
precisely, so please ask for clarification if needed.

- Boot with the Vista installation disk in the drive

- select your language info and click next

- Select your vista installation from the list

- Choose the 'command prompt' from the options list

- Type: regedit
(and press enter)

- Click on HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE

- Click File -> Load Hive

- Browse to C:\Windows\System32\Config folder (if your Windows Vista is
installed on drive C: - if not, browse to this location on whatever
drive you installed Windows to [note the drive letters may not match how
they are displayed from within Vista])

- Select the file named "SAM" and click Open

- Give it a name, e.g. "Target SAM" and click OK

- Expand "Target SAM" inside of HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE

- Expand into the following subfolder: SAM\Domains\Account\Users\000001F4

- Double-click the item in the right called "F"

- You are now presented with a hex editor (Two columns: a list of
hexadecimal numbers on the left, with a list of symbols on the right).
We will only be using the list of numbers on the left.

- Change the 57'th position from hex 11 to hex 10. (I believe this is
the only spot in the data that contains a hex 11). To do this, click to
the immediate right of the 11 to make the insertion point there. Press
backspace, and the 11 disappears. Type 10.

On my computer, here's what the data looked like, up to the point that I
changed:

FROM:

02,00,01,00,00,00,00,00,80,8c,d7,b2,e9,97,c7,01,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,1f,ea,fd,ad,e9,97,c7,01,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,de,ad,60,9b,e9,97,c7,01,f4,01,00,00,01,02,00,00,11,
....

TO:

02,00,01,00,00,00,00,00,80,8c,d7,b2,e9,97,c7,01,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,1f,ea,fd,ad,e9,97,c7,01,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,de,ad,60,9b,e9,97,c7,01,f4,01,00,00,01,02,00,00,10,
....

- Close down regedit
- Reboot

You should now be able to log in to the built-in administrator account
in order to perform whatever maintenance you need to do. It is
recommended that you only use this special admin account for emergencies
such as this, and use other administrator accounts that you create for
every other purpose.


--
-JB
Microsoft MVP - Windows Shell/User
Windows Vista Support FAQ - http://www.jimmah.com/vista/