From: Nina on
Somehow I seem to have "lost" my Computer Administrator status in XP Media
Edition. Because I haven't got it, I'm in a quandry and can't do many things
I want to do. I added a guest user but that seems to be the only user. How
can I add myself - the only user of this PC - back? I had added the guest
user so that my sister could use the PC while she was staying here but can't
get back my Computer Administrator status. This means I can't do my backups
on Clickfree as well as lots of other things because it says I'm not a
Computer Administrator. This is a nightmare. Media Edition has dubbed my HP
Administrator but this doesn't impress Clickfree or allow me to do other
stuff. Please help.

Thanks.

Nina
From: Shenan Stanley on
Nina wrote:
> Somehow I seem to have "lost" my Computer Administrator status in
> XP Media Edition. Because I haven't got it, I'm in a quandry and
> can't do many things I want to do. I added a guest user but that
> seems to be the only user. How can I add myself - the only user of
> this PC - back? I had added the guest user so that my sister could
> use the PC while she was staying here but can't get back my
> Computer Administrator status. This means I can't do my backups on
> Clickfree as well as lots of other things because it says I'm not a
> Computer Administrator. This is a nightmare. Media Edition has
> dubbed my HP Administrator but this doesn't impress Clickfree or
> allow me to do other stuff. Please help.

Does it boot tot he 'Welcome" screen for logon and the only user account
shown is "Guest" or whatever? Is that what you should have described or is
there some other detail you could/should give to explain what you are seeing
better than the above?

If it is the welcome screen guess - reboot, get to the welcome screen, press
CTRL+ALT+DEL twice in a row (quickly) and it should pop up the classic logon
screen where you can type in your username. Do so. And your password.

Sounds to me - if my assumptions about your issue are correct - that you had
only one administrative level account and never created any others so when
you activated another account the administrative account disappeared from
the welcome screen by design. Even *you* aren't supposed to run every day
as administrator - that's just not as safe as you could be using an
alternative (non-administrative level, not the *guest* account) account
daily and an administrative account only when you need to. The limitations
you describe are due to the 'guest' accounts limited privs - even more
limted than a regular account.

--
Shenan Stanley
MS-MVP
--
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html