Windows XP Permissions Screwed Up

[beanman101283]

So a coworker tells me that she would like a password on her computer. Fairly easy thing to do, right?

Well, I'm able to set a password, but find out that her account is set as a Guest account. This the default account that she set up when we first got the laptop for her, a Dell Vostro 1500. Come to find out that the night before she tried to set a password herself, and after some Googling entered "control userpassword2" into the Run dialog and apparently messed around in there. It's been a while since I've ever looked at that window so I don't really remember what's in there.

Whatever she did, trying to log into the Administrator account (which has a blank password, btw) results in a dialog box saying "Unable to log in because of an account restriction." When the computer boots up, The Welcome screen appears but no user names are listed. I have to press Ctrl Alt Del twice to bring up the classic login, type in her user name, and log in that way.

Trying to run that "userpassword2" dialog again comes up with a message asking for an administrator password, but even though the password is blank, it won't open it up.

Is there any way to fix this without reformatting? Is there a way to set the permissions back to "default?"

 

[Monkey34]

Have you tried to create another account with administrator rights, and doing it from there?
BTW: is this XPpro?

Check this out too: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;313222

 

[beanman101283]

Have you tried to create another account with administrator rights, and doing it from there?
BTW: is this XPpro?

Check this out too: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;313222

This is for XP Home, unfortunately.

 

[xxEIEIOxx]

Have you tried to create another account with administrator rights, and doing it from there?
BTW: is this XPpro?

Check this out too: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;313222

You have to be an admin to create an admin account. Can you get into the Administrator account?

 

[beanman101283]

You have to be an admin to create an admin account. Can you get into the Administrator account?

No, when I try to log into the Administrator account, it gives me an error message saying "Unable to log you on because of an account restriction."

 

[xxEIEIOxx]

Are you trying to log onto admin in safe mode? If not, you should be.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290109

 

[Monkey34]

You have to be an admin to create an admin account.

Whoops...gotta read slower - Guest account.

This is for XP Home, unfortunately.

Your technically not supposed to use the userpasswords2 for home version, but then if she knew that, she wouldn't have screwed this up either.

 

[mnewxcv]

boot safemode into admin account, control panel, and make a new user account with admin privileges. although id reformat for sure.

 

[Met-AL]

You need ERD Commander

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...69-0554-4595-8ab4-c34b2860e087&DisplayLang=en

 

[beanman101283]

boot safemode into admin account, control panel, and make a new user account with admin privileges. although id reformat for sure.

This worked. I was able to log in to the admin account, set her user account to administrator, and all seems to be well. Thanks for all the help.