On Sun, 18 Feb 2007 10:14:07 -0800, buyslake
I loooove detail
I am having several owner permissions rights problems with
Windows Vista. I upgraded my Dell XPS M1210 to Windows
Vista from Windows XP Media Center addition on 2/14/2007.
Now this raises an interesting potential problem pattern that may
apply wherever Vista has been installed as an OS upgrade.
A more generic form of this pattern can be stated like this...
When you install Vista, and then drivers and apps, the installation
process will "vet" these. Known-incompatible stuff won't be
installed, and where the installer auto-selects between different code
and options for different OSs, it will do so for Vista.
When you installed XP, this process would have ensured that everything
is selected and set up for XP. When you then upgrade to Vista, you
inherit a code base that is XP-OK, but not neceissarily Vista-OK, and
Vista doesn't have the opportunity to "vet" anything.
The more specific variant of this is...
When you install Vista, Vista's security model and UAC will vet what
can be installed or written where. Installers and apps will not be
allowed to do certain things, so these protected things will be free
of any app or driver footpring there. Apps and drivers that insist on
such access simply won't install or won't work.
When you installed these apps and drivers in XP, Vista's protections
weren't in effect, so material may be present within Vista's protected
spaces. Now Vista's protections bvecome particularly vexing, because
you can't get at those protected spaces to clear out a footprint that
should never have been allowed there in the first place.
I set up myself as the administrator. I am the administrator account.
However, on several occasions now I am unable to remove software, reinstall
software, install drivers etc. because it says I do not have permissions and
I need to re-logon as administrator.
For example I installed a Cannon Selphy CP730 compact printer driver while
it was in Windows XP mode. Now I want to upgrade that driver to newer driver
supplied by Cannon for Windows Vista. The cannon rep advised me to delete
the registry entry for the printer. However I am not able to give myself
full rights and delete. I looked to see who the owner is, it says
Administrators. Now I am the Administrator but not the AdministratorS.
Rights are assigned to groups, which are cataegories of users that
have a modifiable template of rights assigned to each.
The addministrators group contains all user accounts that are created
or assigned as members of that group. If you give a user account
"admin rights", it will prolly become a member of this group.
In addition, XP had a single dedicated "Administrator" account that
generally wasn't used outside Safe Mode. This particular account
could sometimes do things the AdministratorS group can't.
Vista brings its own value to the party, and how this shakes up the XP
Admin account thing, I don't know. As a non-corporate tech, I
generally try to avoid having anything to do with user accounts; they
are invaluable in pro-IT big-network settings, but in consumerland
they just seem to be more hassle than they're worth.
As you've installed Vista over XP, you may have inherited a mix of XP
and Vista account rights and logic. Un-fun, if that's the case.
How did this administrators account get on my computer?
It's a group, not an account - a template of rights that can be
applied to user accounts. XP Home casts a few of these templates in
stone; XP Pro gives you the flexibility to edit these as well as
create new group rights templates of your own.
I did a Belarc Advisor analysis on the computer and it shows there is
an Adminstrator account that is marked as locked. I understand I can not
lock or unlock an account with Windows Vista Home Premium.
OK - that's prolly the XP Administrator account that Vista inherited.
Vista either creates such an account and locks it, or it doesn't
create such an account at all, and has locked the XP account that it
found when installing as an upgrade.
A lot of this stuff is surely known, but alas not by me. Check out
Microsoft's pages on Vista administration, such as TechNet, MSDN, etc.
as there should be rigorous documentation there.
Could someone please tell me how to get rid of the Administrators account
and give myself (the owner of the pc and the person who set everything up)
the rights to remove/install programs or edit the registry!
I hope so; the above is all I can offer :-/
I am unable to use my printer, connect my ipaq, run adobe professional
reinstall, etc. because of this.
This is unbelieveable, it is my computer, I purchased windows vista, loaded
my software and yet I am not the owner? And it will not give me any control.
This really upsets me, what is wrong with windows vista? How did this other
administrators account appear and take control of programs and owns them?
Good questions - if this is a typical outcome, then we have doors to
pound, else if it is not the typical outcome, we need to look at how
your particular upgrade process brought you here.
Maybe the bottom line is the same as it's usually been: Do NOT upgrade
an existing installation to a new Windows version?
--------------- ---- --- -- - - - -
Saws are too hard to use.
Be easier to use!