Main Administrator account not showing up

I have Windows XP w/ SP2 and recently set up 2 user accounts. They both have
administrative capabilities, but my main account doesn't show up now when
logging on or switching back and forth...only the "Guest" account. It's like
it's LOST. If I go into "Safe Mode" it shows up but the computer won't let me
delete the "guest" account. I want to set it back to no passwords, not having
2 accounts, and only the main log on screen. Can anyone help? I don't
understand how this happened.

Windows XP what? Home? Professional? Media Center? Tablet Edition? It
does matter.

I guess you were using the administrator account as your main account (bad
idea anyway) and that means you likely have Windows XP Professional *and*
somehow activated the guest account and/or created a new account - or
installed certain patches that created a new account - like .NET.

I also assume (since you say "show up") you also use the "Welcome screen"
logon instead of classic logon.

1) Reboot the system. Press CTRL+ALT+DEL twice in a row at the welcome
screen. Type in "Administrator" (sans the quotation marks) as the username
and don't put in any password and logon. Work?

2) Either follow the directions below to add the administrator account to
the welcome screen *or* download/utilize TweakUI to choose who is visible on
the welcome screen and even set an automatic logon if you like.

How to add a user to the Welcome Screen logon page:
------
1. Start regedit.exe (Start --> RUN --> REGEDIT --> OK)
2. Navigate to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows
NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\SpecialAccounts\UserLis t .

3. From the Edit menu, select New, DWORD Value.
4. Enter Administrator as the name, then press Enter.
5. Double-click the new value, set it to 1, and click OK.
6. Close the registry editor.

The Administrator account will now appear on the Welcome screen. You can use
these same steps to control which other accounts appear on the Welcome
screen. Set the registry account value to 1 to display an account or 0 to
hide an account. For example, to hide the account for user Bob, add a value
named "Bob" to the registry key identified in step 2 and set the value to 0.

You can do the above with the Microsoft PowerToy TweakUI.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/d...powertoys.mspx
------

Automatic Logons:
------
Microsoft method:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315231

Microsoft Method 2:
TweakUI from:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/d...powertoys.mspx

control userpasswords2 method:
1) Go to the Start Menu and the Run box.
2) Type in the following:

control userpasswords2

now click OK
3) In the new Windows that appears select the account you wish to make the
primary logon.
Now uncheck the "Users must enter a username and password..." box.
4) Hit Apply and a dialog box will appear asking you to confirm the selected
users password.
Click OK when you are done...
------

Hopefully that gets you where you are wanting to be.

It is a *good* thing in the user arena to:
1) Have strong passwords.
2) Have more than one administrator level account (with strong passwords).

I know - you are the "only one who lives there, the only one who uses your
computer".. etc. Great. When your home gets broken into and computer
stolen (either physically or virtually) <- you may be thinking something
else, like "all of my (the only person who lives here, the only person who
uses that computer) records, pictures, emails, financial information, cached
passwords, contacts, etc.. are on that computer."

But that is an individual choice. You get to weigh the risks. =)

As you've discovered, once any additional administrative user
accounts have been created, the built-in Administrator account will no
longer be displayed on the Welcome Screen. This is a default security
feature. By design, the only way to log into the Administrator account
of WinXP Home is to reboot into Safe Mode. For WinXP Pro, pressing
CTRL+ALT+DEL twice at the Welcome Screen will produce the standard login
dialog box.

The built-in Administrator account really was never intended to be
used for day-to-day normal use. The standard security practice is to
rename the account, set a strong password on it, and use it only to
create another account for regular use, reserving the Administrator
account as a "back door" in case something corrupts your regular account(s).

A wiser course of action would be to create another user account
for your daily use (as you've done), and copy desired the files and
settings from the Administrator account to this newly created user profile.

HOW TO Create and Configure User Accounts in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;279783

How to Copy User Data to a New User Profile
http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;811151

Thank you Bruce and Shenan. Shenan, it is XP Media Center. I'll try what
the two of you suggested and see what happens. The "administrator" account
shouldn't have been used as the sole account and now I know why. Creating the
"guest" account has made it disappear. Now I have to figure out how to copy
all the information into the new administrative account and not use the main
one. I had no idea that was created to "disappear" when you made a new
account. I've just always used the main one since day one with the computer.
I created the second for a friend and that's when mine disappeared. Thanks
again...

[obiwan]

Thank you for the info on this thread, it was really helpful to my problem which was the same as the OP but with xp professional

thanks mod for the thanks :-)

Synching from a web forum I see.

Are you replying to the thread from October 2006?

There it is in its entirity. ;-)

Windows XP Media Center is Windows XP Professional with a few features
'removed' and a few things 'added'.

[BobW]

I too had this problem and eventually solved it through using system restore.

Windows XP pro. I had set up "administrator" as my main account. All my programs, software and docs were in there. Apparently that was a mistake but that's what I did. I had a weird problem where sometimes it wouldn't recognize my password when I tried to log in as admin. It was a simple 5-number password, and sometimes it just wouldn't recognize it. Sometimes I had to reset to get it to take. This is a new computer.

So I set up another account as a backdoor in case this happened again, and called it Admin 2. But after I did that, the Administrator account was gone. In Admin 2, most of my desktop was gone and most of my programs were not installed. No access to documents or email. The only way to get into Administrator was in Safe mode but then you can't do squat like print or use email. It also wouldn't let me delete the Admin 2 account, even though it said that should be one of the options.

I tried system restore from with Admin 2, to restore to the previous day. Didn't work. I logged into Administrator in Safe Mode and did it from there and it fixed everything. Admin 2 was gone and I'm up and running like before.

My question for anyone who knows: now that I've totally configured everyting inside of the Administrator account, could that be why I'm having glitches with the password not being recognized? Also, is there an easy way to set up a normal user account that will instantly give access to everything that's in the Admin account, so I won't have to install all the software again etc..?