problem with an administrator account

[HARVONI]

Hi, I got a used dell pc from work that runs vista home x86. It has only been lightly used and I can use it for some light tasks at home. The company that used to provide technical support to that pc puts what I think is some kind of administrator account on it. The name of this account is not exactly "administrator" but I know from past experience that it functions as such. The company gave me the password and insisted that it is the only password there is. What bugs me is that this account seems to malfunction and the password to it only works sometimes.

For example, at the login screen, I can choose to log in in that administrator account or a user account. The password will not work here. So I have to log in as a user. So once I am in, if I want to install or do some modification to the system, that administrator account will prompt for a password, and at this stage the password will usually work. I say "usually" because sometimes it will accept the password but does nothing. Like if I want to move a file into a subfolder on drive C (which is a protected destination I suppose), no matter how many times I enter the password at the prompt and it accepts it, the file will not be moved at all.

So i just want to get rid of this account and regain full control of this pc without a password. I tried the elevated command prompt, net user thing to inactivate the account. what would happen then is everytime I want to uninstall/install something, the system will prompt to ask for a password but there would be no input box that follows to put the password in.

And I don't know if this is because of this version of Vista, but I don't see where to go to manage accounts. But I am pretty sure even if I get there, I will not be able to see this strange account in the list to delete it.

So I was wondering if there is a solution to this besides reinstalling the OS. Many thanks!

 

[townsbg]

If this was a company computer connected to a domain then it might have some strange restrictions applied to it. In essence it might not be a full administrator. If you could please open up a command prompt and type in net user <account name>. While you are at it try winver. Post back the full details of the account and the version. User accounts will also show if the account is a full administration. Please right click on computer and select properties. Look and see if it says domain as it would like on this article. Active Directory, How to tell if your computer is joined to an Active Directory

 

[Barman58]

It may be that there is some corruption of the Administrator account I would suggest that you create a new user to replace and / or provide backup to the existing admin account. As there is a possibility of any account with issues failing completely I would suggest you try this sooner rather than later

New users are created In Vista by an administrator account using the User Accounts applet in the control panel. What I would suggest is to log in as the admin account that you have to access this applet and once you are actually logged in create a new administrator account, (name it whatever you wish, logout and then login as the new admin account and see if that is more reliable. once you are happy that you have a working account you can if you wish remove all trace of previous accounts.

We have a good selection of tutorials here related to user accounts and general management which may help to customise your "New" system to your needs

Tutorials

 

[HARVONI]

thank you both for your reply. Here are the screenshots as requested by townsbg.
I don't see domain in the property. I only see workgroup where the domain line would be.
I cannot log in under that strange account as per Barman's instruction . I can only log in as a user account. Then I can perform a few tasks using the password of that strange "admin" account. Because this password does not work at login, I don't think I can do anything to the user accounts applet except seeing the user account that I logged into.
Can I disclose the names of these accounts so it is easier to troubleshoot? I don't have any problem with it but I want to make sure it is ok per forum rules.

 

[Barman58]

What I was suggesting is that you try to run the user manager elevated, from the account you can access, but let's try going old school to achieve the same result

log in as the regular user - navigate to c:\windows\system32 - find lusrmgr.msc right click and select run as administrator that should hopefully give you access to the old style user manager - you should be able to create a new administrator account, you could also use it later to change password of original admin account once you are logged in as a new admin account

As for using the names you have there's no rule against it but obviously anything that could identify you to others on the net should be avoided

 

[HARVONI]

thanks. this is what i see when i tried to do it


Also, I have been mucking around and I come across this. "rx30" is the user account that I used to log into windows. "rx30posadmin" (the 3rd one down) is the troublesome account in questions. I have not seen the other two accounts showed up anywhere.




Anyways, I just realized that there was probably no problems with the password. I tried safe mode and logged in just fine under the "rx30posadmin" account. Once I am in the admin account, I can delete this password in the user account thing (however, I cannot see or make changes to any other account except this "admin" account). In safe mode, I can do most of the things that I want to do, move files in and out of the c: drive etc. so there seems to be something running in the normal mode that prevents this from happening.

I think it is called "user profile service". When I start in normal mode and try to log in Windows in this "admin" account, it gives me the error "user profile service failed the logon." I thought that it was a password problem but apparently not. So whatever "user profile service" is seems to be the problem.

Many thanks again

 

[townsbg]

Control panel > user accounts. Select manage another account. Now enter in the other account's password when prompted. If you can get this far then you can create another admin account. You can also promote yours to administrator by selecting change you account type when under your account. Enter in the administrator's password. If you can't do either of these then I don't see how you can get complete admin access.

See this about an account in backup status. User profile status set to backup

 

[HARVONI]

thank you both for your help. I think I figured it out. That password was fine all along. However the user profile was corrupted. Hence when I logged on, it said "user profile service failed the logon" instead of "wrong password". I fixed it by using the regedit way found from here:

Corrupt User Profile: Fix for Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, 8.1, 10

Just thought I should post this for completeness and close the thread. I may have other issues but I think I will open a new thread then. Thank you again!

 

[townsbg]

Thank you for sharing. Perhaps it will help someone else.