help win xp no administrator

[John Cutler]

I recently purchased a dell pc, with windows xp as the os. the login screen displays the name helen (who is the previous owner) when i came to put it on the internet it said i needed to be an administrator, going into user accounts there is only 1 account and that is helens, you do not have the option to add an account or anything. booting up in safe mode also only allows you to log in as helen. If you go into computer management in users ect there is another user listed who is an administrtor and also the administrator account, but i am unable to gain access to either of these accounts, does anybody know what else i can try as i have never had this problem before.

many thanks,

John

[Fed]

I would do a clean install of XP, you never know what Helen has left on that machine.  

[GX1_Man]

Agreed. Hopefully you got an operating system CD, or you get to buy one  of those too. Check with *censored*-en

[John Cutler]

so obviously no other way around it then other than wiping it   i didnt really want to have to do that  :-/

[GX1_Man]

That's the extra security of XP, assuming that  is what you are using.

There goes your evening!

(I don't miss long reinstalls, loading programs, antivirus, anti-adware programs, etc. any more as I can do that with Linspire in under 10 minutes. That's right. Blank hard drive to all programs and OS loaded and surfing the net in 10 minutes! Sorry, I just needed to make a plug for it.)

[dl65]

 John Cutler......  If you go to contol panel /user accounts ......  select change an account .......then high light Helen Computer Administrator ......click on it ...and select change my name .........once thats changed ......now you should be able to change the password and your name will show up whenever you start up windows .

Hope this helps you .

dl65  

[John Cutler]

The problem is that helen is NOT an administrator, there does not seem to be any administrator, i dont want to have to wipe it.

[GX1_Man]

Can you get hold of Helen? You will need the mystery password.

[John Cutler]

Yes i can get hold of helen but she has no password on it, when you go into user accounts you have the option to create a password, but as she only a user and not an administrator, it really is of no use. I beleived all administrator accounts could not be deleted, but they are certainly not showing on this computer.

[Fed]

I beleived all administrator accounts could not be deleted

My thoughts exactly.  

Why not do a fresh install?

[John Cutler]

I dont really want to do a fresh install i have got helens password and the admin password she has for it but with no admin account to use a password on it isnt much use at all lol. I got told that you CAN remove all administrators on XP Proffessional whis is what this is, but im not sure of the truth of that, which is why i have posted this, if you cannot then it must be there ............ somewhere, but how to find it, obviously it is not showing in safe mode and i cannot use system restore as helen is not an administrator and that appears to be the only user on the computer.

[dl65]

John Cutler....As I understand it , there must be an administrator assigned before any user options may be changed ........So I wonder if the pc was actually Helens to begin with . or someone altered something ...before you purchased it ?
When you go into User Accounts .......are there any otions available to you ?

dl65  

[John Cutler]

Nope there are no options available only to create a password for helen, the computer was not helens to begin with she got it from someone else, so i am a bit stuck lol as i am not sure if an administrator could now be created or recovered. I seem to recall you can access system restore from a boot up disk, but having never had to do that im not 100% sure on that either.

Kind regards,

John

[GX1_Man]

I think the consensus is that you are stuck, so get read y to reinstall.

[John Cutler]

I feared i might have to but wasnt sure if anyone knew another way.

Thanks anyway