Not all users appear in User Accounts

  • Thread starter Thread starter Swifty
  • Start date Start date
S

Swifty

When I open "User Accounts" in the control panel, I can see users
"Steve", "Louise" and "Guest". There are other accounts on my system
(Administrator, for one) but I do not see them.

So, I created a new administrator account, called "Temp", logged onto
that, and went into User Accounts. Now I can see all of the user accounts.

How can I fix my "Steve" administrator account so that it sees all of
the other user accounts in User Accounts?
 
Administrator is not a user account -- it's a system account. You should
/not/ use Administrator for day-to-day computing.

Any user can see all the accounts on a computer. From any user account,
go to My Computer, double-click on the icon for your system drive
(normally this is C:), then double-click on the icon for Documents and
Settings. Since some accounts are hidden, you will have to enable hidden
files and folders.

To enable hidden files and folders, open any Windows Explorer windows
and go to Tools > Folder Options > View tab > place a check mark in
'Show hidden files and folders.'

User accounts with Administrator permissions can access the contents of
all user accounts. Users with reduced permissions can only access their
own account.
 
Swifty said:
When I open "User Accounts" in the control panel, I can see users
"Steve", "Louise" and "Guest". There are other accounts on my system
(Administrator, for one) but I do not see them.

So, I created a new administrator account, called "Temp", logged onto
that, and went into User Accounts. Now I can see all of the user
accounts.

How can I fix my "Steve" administrator account so that it sees all of
the other user accounts in User Accounts?
Click to expand...

I'm actually surprised you can see the built-in Administrator account
when logged in as "Temp."

Anyway, why do you need to do this in the first place? What are you
trying to do?
 
Daave said:
Anyway, why do you need to do this in the first place? What are you
trying to do?
Click to expand...

I had discovered that when I changed my password (this morning) that I'd
managed to change it to a value I did not know. Luckily I discovered
this before loggong off! Whilst I was still logged on, I un-encrypted
all of my encrypted files, as I know I would lose the content otherwise.
Then I needed to logon as a different administrator so I could zap
Steve's password (I couldn't change my own password, as I didn't know
the current value). So I listed the user accounts. I could find only
"Steve", "Louise" and "Guest". Guest was not admin, and I didn't want to
fiddle with Louise's userid. So I created a new Admin userid called TEMP
(I have no plans to keep it). I logged on as TEMP, went into User
Accounts, and could see, amongst others, my original "Administrator"
userid. I zapped Steve's password and all was well. Apart from one niggle:

I'm puzzled why Steve (Admin) sees fewer entries in User Accounts than
TEMP (Admin). It may well be something that I've done, but if so I don't
recall what.
 
Swifty said:
I'm puzzled why Steve (Admin) sees fewer entries in User Accounts than
TEMP (Admin). It may well be something that I've done, but if so I don't
recall what.
Click to expand...

Well, I went back into user accounts and I couldn't see "Temp". I tries
to add "Temp" but was told that the account already existed.

Do I went around the loop again, this time with Temp1 (admin).

Logged on as Temp1, I could see only "Steve" "Louise" and "Guest" (Off).

I realised that Steve and Louise were all that appeared on the Welcome
screen, because I'd chosen that in TweakUI XP.

So, I enabled all of the accounts for the welcome screen and went back
into Users Accounts. Now I could see all the accounts, and oddly I had
*two* "Swifty" accounts; one admin, the other not. I deleted the
non-admin "Swifty". I logged off Temp1 and went back to Steve.

I still couldn't see any account other than Steve, Louise and Guest in
User Accounts, so I went into TweakUI XP. Only Steve and Louise were
enabled for the Welcome screen (now there's a hard concept to grasp,
per-user Welcome screen content... how would it know what userid to
honour?). Anyhow, after enabling the extra accounts for the Welcome
Screen, they magically appeared in User Accounts as well.

All I have to do now is tidy up after all these Temp/Temp1 accounts!
 
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