User Group Problem

[ATS]

I was poking around netplwiz changing the login options and I accidentally changed my user account group from Administrator to HomeGroupUser, now I can't access netplwiz again to change it, I can't edit groups from the Control Panel User Accounts GUI, I show up as a guest account type. There are no other accounts on the system. Am I going to have to reinstall or can I work some magic to get my account back to Admin.

Thanks!

 

[TheTech]

Activate the hidden Administrator account and do it from there ( I think you can do it for all three o/s ( xp, vista, 7), you can do this through cmd prompt,

so open cmd as admin
- right click - run as admin (youdont need to do this in xp)

enter this cmd
- net user administrator /active:yes

that account should then appear on the login screen, login with that new account and correct the mistake.

 

[ATS]

Only problem is I can't run it as admin..

Windows 7 by the way.

 

[TheTech]

ok, just open cmd as normal (non admin) and input the same cmd again if i remember rightly it should work

 

[ATS]

ok, just open cmd as normal (non admin) and input the same cmd again if i remember rightly it should work

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7600]
Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation.  All rights reserved.

C:\Users\Jordan>net user administrator /active:yes
System error 5 has occurred.

Access is denied.


C:\Users\Jordan>

I have been looking around online and I haven't found much info on getting this set back. Hopefully I don't have to do a reinstall but it looks like it's going that way.

Anyone else have any ideas?

 

[dbdawn]

What about using the command prompt, before it boots to your user account?

 

[ATS]

How would I access CMD before logging in?

 

[MobileTechie]

You might want to open the command prompt as admin, if it will let you, before using that command.

Failing that the offline registry and password editor which is downloadable as an ISO or is on various boot disks including Hirens, will allow offline activation of accounts including the admin one.

 

[ATS]

I can't open CMD as admin.

I'll look into the offline registry and password editor and see if I can get that to work for me.

 

[ATS]

Failing that the offline registry and password editor which is downloadable as an ISO or is on various boot disks including Hirens, will allow offline activation of accounts including the admin one.

Thanks for that suggestion!

I'll dictate what I did in case anyone has a similar problem in the future.

I downloaded the editor ISO from here and booted off the disk. It was a very simple process, the prompts on the screen give you all the information you need and the defaults were fine for me. I selected the Administrator account, enabled it. Restarted the computer. Logged in as "Administrator", no password. Start, typed "netplwiz" selected my account, Group tab, changed it to Administrators. Disabled the Administrator account from netplwiz, reboot. Logged in as my normal user with Admin privileges again. Yaaaa!

 

[MobileTechie]

Hey no problem. Glad it worked out.