Lost administrator user on upgrade

[John W. Vinson]

I recently upgraded a PC (at a local library, as a
volunteer) from NT 4.0 to WindowsXP. There were nine
users defined under NT4... and eight of them are now
available for logon.

The only one that ISN'T is EXEC, and EXEC is the only
Administrator!

How can I log on with administrator privileges? Obviously
none of the lower-privilege users that I can log on as,
have the rights to create an administrative user, or to
do much else... should I do as I've done on two other
machines, and wipe the disk and do a clean install?

John W. Vinson

 

[Carey Frisch [MVP]]

Original Administrator Account Does Not Appear During Friendly Logon Method
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;281992&Product=winxp

Enable Administrator account on Welcome Screen
http://www.dougknox.com/xp/scripts_desc/xp_admin_ok.htm

[Courtesy of MS-MVP Doug Knox]

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows XP - Shell/User

Be Smart! Protect your PC!
http://www.microsoft.com/security/protect/

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


| I recently upgraded a PC (at a local library, as a
| volunteer) from NT 4.0 to WindowsXP. There were nine
| users defined under NT4... and eight of them are now
| available for logon.
|
| The only one that ISN'T is EXEC, and EXEC is the only
| Administrator!
|
| How can I log on with administrator privileges? Obviously
| none of the lower-privilege users that I can log on as,
| have the rights to create an administrative user, or to
| do much else... should I do as I've done on two other
| machines, and wipe the disk and do a clean install?
|
| John W. Vinson

 

[John W. Vinson]

I see a header that Carey Frisch responded to my plea...
but I'm getting "Message Unavailable". Carey, would you
be so kind as to repost, or to unspam my From address and
EMail me? (And yes, as an Access MVP myself, I know this
request is going out on a limb).

My news server doesn't carry the windowsxp groups (yes,
I'm emailing them) so I am suffering through the MS
website interface... grrr!

John W. Vinson

 

[John W. Vinson]

Original Administrator Account Does Not Appear During Friendly Logon Method
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;281992&Product=winxp

Enable Administrator account on Welcome Screen
http://www.dougknox.com/xp/scripts_desc/xp_admin_ok.htm

[Courtesy of MS-MVP Doug Knox]

Thanks Carey (and Doug)! No thanks to the MSKB search which turned up
several hundred references with "Administrator" and "Logon"... these
were no doubt amongst them but I couldn't pin them down.