Win-XP, accessing user Administrator

I thought out of curiosity it would be interesting to ask forum users whether or not they knew about how to access thier user account Administrator?

The only way I know of is by booting into safe-mode (pressing F8 @ startup just after the beep).

The main reason I bring this up is because from what I understand the Administrator account is not password-protected out-of-the-box. This seems risky to me to say the least!

Granted, though, because you're in "safe-mode" that that in-and-of-itself protects you from hackers getting into your computer may be protection enough, therefore there may be no need to set a password for Administrator, I don't know.

I just thought that as a safeguard users may want to set a password for thier Administrator account if for no other reason than for peace of mind.

Any thoughts/ideas, please elaborate.

--fayejlee

Please realize that I'm not terribly familiar with Microsoft's products. But I have on occasion used public computers that were running XP-Pro.

If there is an adminstrator account, you should be able to access it through the regular login screen (not requiring safe mode). You normally would be presented with this screen at boot up and when you log out. If you don't see this screen even when you logout, I am guessing it is because of an "autologin" configuration. Try an Internet search to find out how to change that. If you get to the login screen but still can't log in as adminstrator, try becoming adminstrator using the method you described and then change the password so that you know it. (Be sure to use a strong password: 8+ characters, upper and lower case letters plus numbers, no dictionary words, etc, etc.)

Unless the account is "locked" (using the term for it from the *nix world -- I don't know what the terminology in the MS world would be), you *definitely* want a password on the adminstrator account. A *strong* password. Even if you don't intend to log in to it.

Of course, as I understand it, on MS systems it is common for people to run with administrative privledge. Which is one of the sources of security problems on MS systems. (This is at least somewhat mitigated by something MS added to Vista -- I forget the term they used for it, but most people apparently find it obnoxious and some turn it off.)

Aw well crap! when typing the above I realized my cookie cleaner hadn't been coming on and sure enough I tried to refresh rescheduler and it gave me the same answer, no I cannot access that, only the administrator can. The problem is I am the administrator. I give up.

I read something about that in the MS write ups. About not using your puter as an administrator but as just a operator. If you are the only one though, you think ah gee, I have to be both an administrator and a regular person and so it is easier just to be both as administrator. You are right. I does diminish your security. So now I feel guilty so I will sign myself up as just a plain ole user, lol. Until I decide to go read as to why I can't do maintenance when I am the administrator, sheeesh. It's all so tough. I WANT WIN98SE BACK!!!

Thanks Faye, I realized after having the same experience with both home and professional that it was me so I assigned a new administrator plus just me with limited and that worked. So now I am both with 2 different accounts. I still don't like it at all and wish we could continue with win98, lol. Just don't like all the rigamarole. You know that win98 only took maybe a half a gig and that was with extra's like more screensavers etc and this XP takes close to 3 gigs once installed without all the nice extra's. Ridiculous.

Yea, I gotta admit, that was a pretty washed out excuse of an explanation. Let me try this again:

I'm betting that when you installed your cookie cleaner software that you were running under the actual Administrator account. In other words, you didn't have any other users setup on your computer, so XP just opened right up to the desktop without asking you to select a user. That's the default Administrator account.

You have since setup other users and are probably logging in with one of them, and even though it may be true that these added users were setup as having Administrator privilages, the cookie cleaner software may be complaining because you are not that same user, namely the almighty Administrator, who installed this software in the first place.

Are ya' with me so far? Can I get an amen from the choir?

I am still terribly confused, but thanks for your help, maybe you will understand what I am about to post, I sure don't.
In the beginning....

When I first setup professional and home I thought it did ask for an administrator but....I set up the disk cleaner AKA cookie cleaner to me and when I noticed it didn't run I requested it to run and it said "so solly" you are not an administrator soooo I set up an administrator account, me, and went about my business using it only for administrator duties and went back to my other account where I had downloaded all my programs to before setting up the administrator account. Do you follow me so far? I then noticed that my updates weren't updating or the virus programs weren't virusing under the non administrative me. I thought it was the program so I downloaded it again and of course it wouldn't work cuz I downloaded it under the me account, so I then downloaded it under the administrative account and ran it there. To make a long story short, if I can, what is downloaded under admin does not work under my me account and vise versa. No virus control under the me desktop or updates, only under the admin setup. The problem is I don't want to use the admin account because it is less secure but if I use the "me" account well then I am not updated and crawling with bugs. It shouldn't be this way, the admin programs should cover all other names on the puter, right??? Not to mention all the space it is taking having the same programs on the puter twice. Arghhhhhhhhhhhh!!

I'm a little rusty at this, and I am not an expert in anything. But, when you first install WindowsXP or Vista, you are required to set up a "user" account. This is actually the administrator account. This account allows you to everything on the computer in question, i.e., it gives you global access. While in this account, you can install/uninstall files, access any files on the computer, make any changes you want to system files, files which affect the way the computer operates. If you do nothing else, any time you boot the computer, you will boot into the administrator account and, I believe, it is possible to do so without password protection.

The problem is that, in theory anyway, if you surf the 'net, for instance, while in this administrator account and your computer gets hacked and/or catches a virus and/or worm or whatever, the hacker/malware can wreak any kind of damage he/she/it wants because you and the hacker/malware have complete access to the computer. For this reason, Microsoft recommends that as soon as installation is complete, you create a standard user account which you will boot into at start-up. A standard account has fewer privileges than an administrator account. You can even further modify (restrict) those privileges if you want to do so.

As I write this, I am using a Vista machine. When I boot the machine, it stops at a screen with two icons on it. One icon represents the administrator account. The other icon represents the user account I have created. I must click on one of these two icons in order to proceed. 99 times out of 100, I click on the icon for the user account. That is fine and sufficient for almost anything I want to do on the computer. If I know ahead of time that I will want to do something special, like install a program, I will click on the other icon and proceed to the administrator account.

If I click into the user account and at some point later I decide I want to do something that requires administrative privileges, I tell the computer that I want to, for instance, install a program, and it will put a dialog box on the screen telling me that I must have administrator privileges. It will also give me the opportunity to type in my administrator password in order to get those privileges and that control. I can also get the required privileges by clicking Start>(Right Arrow)>Log off> then click on the admin icon and sign in.

Maybe jimmymac can elaborate, but Linux is supposedly much better at compartmentalizing accounts than Windows of any flavor...

Hey Faye, was there a reason you skipped over my post, lmho.

jimmymac, try the set command, or better yet filter it with the find command (USERNAME has to be all caps I think)

set | find "USERNAME"

--fayejlee