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John said:
Secondary Logon says: Status=started; Startup Type=Automatic; Log On
As=Local System. Is that how it should look?
I have only one active User Account, which is for me and it is a
"Computer Administrator" account.
But I am trying to RunAs THE "Administrator", not as another User
Account with admin rights (the only one of those is the user I am
logged on as). THE "Administrator" is the first named user when I
click "RunAs", then "The following user:".
In Windows XP - there is no difference in what they can do, really. If you
are an administrator, you can do everything the built-in administrator can
do.
I was led (by someone) to believe that if I run the third party
software installation program in Safe Mode, I would be running as
THE Administrator, and that using "RunAs" "Administrator" from my
XP User Account would accomplish the same thing.
You could log into safe mode as the built-in administrator - sure. Don't
have to though. Whomever lead you to believe that - particularly if they
knew you have Windows XP Professional - led you astray.
Since RunAs doesn't require a restart, I'm trying to use that
approach. And it always worked before the Windows reinstall (with
this same third party software install program), and it works fine
on my laptop (with the same third party software install program). I've
installed this software quite a few times as THE
Administrator, and it has always worked like a charm.
Shouldn't need to be installed as the built-in administrator. If it does -
then they coded atround that in some way - hopefully not by username - since
that can be changed.
According to the folks who did my Windows XP reinstall, there is no
password for THE computer Administrator on my pc (as there was not
in my previous installation, and as there is not on my laptop,
where this works). And I know there is no password for my Windows
Account User.
So - log on as the built-in administrator.
Log off - if you get to the "Welcome Screen", either choose the built-ion
administrator (which will likely not be shown - but juts in case) or more
likely - Press CTRL+ALT+DEL twice in a row to get the classic logon screen
and type the username "Administrator" in the username area and make sure the
password area is blank (since you claim the password is blank) and logon.
Is there some Windows option that can require THE Administrator to
have a password?
Require it - yes. For all users.
Where, in Windows, would restrictions on logon hours be specified?
I doubt this is the case. Google for it though.
And what other "policy restrictions" could keep my User Account
from doing a RunAs THE Administrator?
None that I know of - and it is the built-in administrator, not "THE"
administrator. You could have 50 administrative level users on that
machine - not one of them can do anything that rest of them couldn't...
So - in short...
- Prove the administrator user exists:
- Start --> RUN --> Control UserPasswords2 --> Click OK --> Users tab -->
Administrator listed?
- Log on as the administrator
- Log off the current user --> if you get a Welcome screen, press
CTRL+ALT+DEL twice and type in the username "Administrator" with no password
(as those that install claim it to be.)
If those two things work - then you should be able to utilize runas.
Although I personally would assign a password to at least all your
administrative level accounts. My guess is that is all you have anyway.
Which brings me to the point that you should not have to install any
application as the built-in administrator vs. any other local administrator.
Whatever application that is must have something hard-coded into it (if that
is true) - bad form in my opinion.