How do I

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chyron

I am the owner of my laptop, and its only user. So then why am I not the
administrator, and how do I become it? Thanks.
 
chyron said:
Thanks for responding, but that article might as well have been written in
Greek:-) I still don't understand what I'm supposed to do to become the
administrator. It would seem to me the person that buys the computer and
uses it should have all privilages...but it seems it's not so.
Click to expand...
The fact that you couldn't understand the article is precisely why Vista has
been designed as it is - security.
You should NOT run your Vista (or any other come to that) computer on a
daily basis using an account with Administrator rights.
Perhaps if you were to tell us what you are trying to do we might be able to
point you in the right direction...
 
chyron wrote:

Thanks for responding, but that article might as well have been written in
Greek:-) I still don't understand what I'm supposed to do to become the
administrator. It would seem to me the person that buys the computer and
uses it should have all privilages...but it seems it's not so.
Click to expand...

There is no reason in Vista to ever run as administrator on a regular basis,
let alone as the built-in Administrator (disabled by default for security).
Vista security is now in line with the way other grown-up operating systems
(Linus, Unix, OS X) manage security. If you need to temporarily run a
program as administrator (elevated), you can right-click the executable and
choose "run as administrator".

If there is something you are attempting to do and having a problem, then
post the particulars so we can help you.

Here is general information about setting up user accounts 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
 
Malke said:
chyron wrote:

Thanks for responding, but that article might as well have been written
in
Greek:-) I still don't understand what I'm supposed to do to become the
administrator. It would seem to me the person that buys the computer and
uses it should have all privilages...but it seems it's not so.
Click to expand...

There is no reason in Vista to ever run as administrator on a regular
basis,
let alone as the built-in Administrator (disabled by default for
security).
Vista security is now in line with the way other grown-up operating
systems
(Linus, Unix, OS X) manage security. If you need to temporarily run a
program as administrator (elevated), you can right-click the executable
and
choose "run as administrator".

If there is something you are attempting to do and having a problem, then
post the particulars so we can help you.

Here is general information about setting up user accounts 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
Click to expand...

Ok...it's not a big deal, it's just annoying me. Vista Premium does not have
a fax program...so I tried to add Bitware to the system. (I recall using it
on Win98) But as you probably figured, it didn't work. So I wanted to delete
it, and was told by Vista, I didn't have the privilages to do so! That got
me upset, so I wanted it off even more! I then opened it up, and one by one
deleted every file there except one..."bwprnmon"... an application file, but
Vista won't let me get rid of it. Now it's only 53 KB, it's not doing
anything wrong to my computer, I "can" just leave it there, but it just kind
of pissed me off that I couldn't get rid of it:-)
 
chyron said:
Ok...it's not a big deal, it's just annoying me. Vista Premium does not
have a fax program...so I tried to add Bitware to the system. (I recall
using it on Win98) But as you probably figured, it didn't work. So I
wanted to delete it, and was told by Vista, I didn't have the privilages
to do so! That got me upset, so I wanted it off even more! I then opened
it up, and one by one deleted every file there except one..."bwprnmon"...
an application file, but Vista won't let me get rid of it. Now it's only
53 KB, it's not doing anything wrong to my computer, I "can" just leave it
there, but it just kind of pissed me off that I couldn't get rid of it:-)
Click to expand...

I expect the file is in Program Files, which is a protected directory in
Vista. Deleting files the way you did instead of using the Programs &
Features uninstall probably is what caused the issue. I've never had a
problem deleting things from Program Files while in an administrative user
account, so it may also be that the program has hooked itself into the
graphical user interface.

Log into an account with administrative privileges. Some things to try from
there:

a. Right-click on the file and take ownership of it. Attempt to delete it.

b. If that fails, see if you can rename it and then delete it.

c. If that fails, make a note of the path to the file; i.e., C:\Program
Files\foldername\filename. Now start Task Manager. From the Processes tab,
kill explorer.exe. Now from the Programs tab click the button for "New
Task". Choose cmd to get a command prompt (do not close Task Manager). At
the command prompt, navigate to C:\Program Files\foldername and delete the
file. Example:

C:\Windows\System32 (I'm not sure where the command prompt will start out
for you)

C:\Windows\System32 cd C:\Program Files\foldername [enter]

C:\Program Files\foldername

C:\Program Files\foldername del filename [enter]

To be sure it's gone (if you didn't get an error message)

C:\Program Files\foldername dir [enter]

Use Task Manager to run a New Task and type: explorer.exe [enter] to bring
back the graphical user interface.

d. If that didn't work, you can enable the built-in Administrator, log into
it, delete the folder/file, disable the built-in Administrator. To do this,
from your administrative user account start an elevated command prompt:

Start Orb>Search box>type: cmd
When cmd appears in Results above, right-click it and choose "run as
administrator". This will give you an elevated command prompt. At the
prompt type:

net user administrator /active:yes [enter]

Exit the command prompt and log off. Now you will see an icon for
Administrator on the Welcome Screen. Log into this account and delete the
files. Once done, log out and back into an administrative account. Disable
the built-in Administrator account for security purposes by starting an
elevated command prompt (as above) and typing:

net user administrator /active:no [enter]

Exit the command prompt.

BTW, quite a few people have recommended Snappy Fax, which is supported in
Vista.

Malke
 
(snipped)


Malke...I did what you suggested and re-named the file, and tried to delete
it, and guess what??? It worked:-) Thank you!
 
chyron wrote:

Malke...I did what you suggested and re-named the file, and tried to
delete it, and guess what??? It worked:-) Thank you!
Click to expand...

Great! I'm glad that sorted it for you and you didn't need to go through the
rest of the stuff. Thanks for taking the time to let me know.

Malke
 
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