Melville said:
My neighbor got a new Dell with Vista. She is not sure what she did
except to logon as herself; Sandry
She was the ony Admin but she changed her security from ADMIN to Standard
User
Now when she wants to do anything, VISTA is asking for a password? Can
she reboot into SAFE mode | Control Panel | Create New User | As and
administrator ?
She said she restarted into SAFE mode but VISTA keeps asking for a
Password. She does not know what she did or what she will do.
Did she forget to make an extra administrator account before demoting her
own user account to Standard? If yes, she can try booting into Safe Mode.
Although the built-in Administrator account is disabled by default, if
there are no other administrative user accounts on the system,
Administrator will be enabled and she can click on its picture on the
Welcome Screen. Once in, she should consider setting up her user accounts
per the following general recommendations. If Administrator is *not* on the
Welcome Screen in Safe Mode, then she will need to enable it. Rather than
include the lengthy instructions to do this, I will wait until I hear back
from you about that.
General Recommendations For Setting Up Users In Vista:
You absolutely do not want to have only one user account. Like XP and all
other modern operating systems, Vista is a multi-user operating system with
built-in system accounts such as Administrator, Default, All Users, and
Guest. These accounts should be left alone as they are part of the
operating system structure.
You particularly don't want only one user account with administrative
privileges on Vista because the built-in Administrator account (normally
only used in emergencies) is disabled by default. If you're running as
Administrator for your daily work and that account gets corrupted, things
will be Difficult. It isn't impossible to activate the built-in
Administrator to rescue things, but it will require third-party tools and
working outside the operating system.
The user account that is for your daily work should be a Standard user, with
the extra administrative user (call it something like "CompAdmin" or "Tech"
or the like) only there for elevation purposes. After you create
"CompAdmin", log into it and change your regular user account to Standard.
Then log back into your regular account.
If you want to go directly to the Desktop and skip the Welcome Screen with
the icons of user accounts, you can do this:
Start Orb>Search box>type: netplwiz [enter]
Click on Continue (or supply an administrator's password) when prompted by
UAC
Uncheck the option "Users must enter a user name and password to use this
computer". Select a user account to automatically log on by clicking on the
desired account to highlight it and then hit OK. Enter the correct password
for that user account (if there is one) when prompted. Leave it blank if
there is no password (null).
Malke
