Help, XP Pro administrator account serious difficulty

[JamesC]

Here is my problem.
I recently installed XP Proffesional on my computer (newly built). At that time i didnt need to bother with having more than one user on the computer so i set everything up with the default administrator account, copied all my music in and installed all my programs everything. Then i needed to set up a guest and a limited account. I tried to activate the guest account but it told me that first i needed to set up an administrator account, i did this under my name and turned on the guest account. I then logged of. When i logged on again the original administrator account was gone. I did not think that this would be a problem but when i logged on under the new administrator account i found that all the settings i had made were lost, worse still i couldnt find any of my music and some of my programs would not work (like Asus PC probe). I spent a long time looking for the original administrator account eventually finding it by changing the log in options to classic and then typing in 'administrator'. However if i return to the XP way of logging in the administrator account dissapears again.

So what should i do. Is there anyway of just keeping the original administrator account and having a guest account and a limited account. Or alternatively just transferring every setting that is on the admin account to my new named administrator account. Or alternatively just renaiming the original administrator account to my name and just using that. Really i do not want two admin accounts just the one.

All help would be very much appreciated , but ideally i would like to log in using the XP screen not the classic login.

Thanks a lot,

James

 

[c0rv1d43]

Just copy or move the data from the original admin account to the new one, and configure it the way you want it. You should definitely have two admin accounts. Think of this: What happens if an installation program you're running borks the admin profile you're using? If you only have one admin account, you have no administrative access to that installation of the operating system. In WinXP the original Administrator account is designed to be accessed primarily from Safe Mode. Think of that original account as a backup admin account. Use your regular admin account for doing all the admin stuff.

- Collin

 

[JamesC]

Ok,
Thanks for that. Tell me something then, how do i get things like PC probe to work with my new administration account? I have copied my music and that so that should be fine it is just some of the programs i am having difficulty with. Also if you go in through safe mode does it automatically log you into the admin account and you just have to type in your password????
Thanks a lot for the help. I have upgraded from ME and really like XP, however i am just getting used to it at the moment.
Thanks again,
James

 

[c0rv1d43]

Tell me something then, how do i get things like PC probe to work with my new administration account? I have copied my music and that so that should be fine it is just some of the programs i am having difficulty with.

You need to specify what you have done to try to make the application(s) work with the new admin account, and how it is failing to function properly for you. Be as precise in your descriptions as possible. We need to know what you see, including any error messages that pop up. Also, you should look under Administrative Tools at the Event Viewer to see if there are any error messages showing up under the System or Applications sections. When you view the details of an error message by double-clicking on it you get a little dialog box with the full error message in it. There is a button on the dialog for copying the event / error contents to the clipboard. You can use that for pasting the contents of the error messages into a message here. If you give us some exact information we may be able to help you, although I guess it's possible that a specialized knowledge of your applications may be required. I'm afraid that I'm not familiar with "PC Probe" (?).

Also if you go in through safe mode does it automatically log you into the admin account and you just have to type in your password????

I don't use the Welcome Screen on any of our WinXP systems, but I suspect that you'll see all of the accounts listed on the Welcome Screen when you boot to Safe Mode. You'd just choose the appropriate icon and then type in the password. You should just try it to find out, or am I missing something in your question? Certainly when using the standard format login box as in previous versions of NT you have all of the user accounts available in Safe Mode.

- Collin

 

[Tiger]

You should disable the original admin account after setting up a regular user with admin rights.
The one thing all 2K and XP users have in common is the "administrator" account. Anybody who wants in is already half way there.

 

[c0rv1d43]

You should disable the original admin account after setting up a regular user with admin rights.
You should disable the original admin account after setting up a regular user with admin rights.
The one thing all 2K and XP users have in common is the "administrator" account. Anybody who wants in is already half way there.

Disable it? I'm sorry to say it, but that's dangerous advice for anyone to try to take!

The proper thing to do on a standalone system (or one that's used in a workgroup) is to use a security option under local policies (secpol.msc) to rename the primary admin account (and the guest account). And since when is knowing a user name half of the way into getting into the system? Not on any system on which any kind of recommended practices are used. Strong passwords and password and logon / lockout policies are called for if there is concern about the security of the system. BIOS startup passwords and physical security also come into play here.

Besides, what good would a disabled primary admin account be? What happens if the one that's normally used gets whacked? You're left with no admin access to the box, that's what! I feel quite sure you can't find any recommendation from Microsoft that your advice to attempt to disable the primary admin account be followed. As a matter of fact Microsoft did their best to make it impossible to delete the original admin accounts in both Win2K and WinXP.

- Collin

Edit: BTW, there is no secpol.msc in WinXP Home Edition. One of many reasons why I don't recommend it for ANYONE.

 

[Tiger]

Poor choice of words.
I should have said renamed instead of disabled.
Be that as it may there is no functional difference between renaming the admin account and creating a new user with admin rights.
You can't delete the admin account.

 

[JamesC]

Hi,

First the good news, my account seems to be all set and working properly, so that is the most important thing, on my account Asus probe works fine and also Hauppage WinTV.

Now the bad news, i have two other accounts set up, one for my gilfriend (limited) and a guest account for everybody else. Neither Asus probe or WinTV works with these accounts. Here are the error messages that occur when Asus probe loads:

Title is always the same - AsmiHwIo
Then these error messages occur one after the other
- cant open service control manager
- cant create driver service
- cant open driver service
- cant open AsmiHwIl.dll

When i try to start WintTv under these accounts the initial screen starts up but then nothing happens and the pro shows full load in Task manager. I waited a few minutes and closed it.

I am not bothered about asus probe running in these other accounts but i do not want all the error messages. is there any way to either get it to run or disable it. I would however like for WinTV to work. I was thinking about reinstalling these programs while in these different accounts, do you think that this would work?

Thanks for all the help,
James

 

[c0rv1d43]

Although it's possible that there may be issues with the way the software has been installed on the system that may be affecting its availability to the lower level users, BUT it really sounds more like you may be running into a problem with permissions. The limited user and guest accounts do not generally have the levels of access to hardware control features on an NT-based system. Since this is WinXP Pro you can make use of a feature called "RUNAS". It allows one user to run a program under the credentials of another user. So you can set up the limited users' shortcuts to the malfunctioning apps so that they are activated as though an admin user was running them. The /SAVECRED switch for RUNAS in WinXP Pro even makes it possible for the admin user to set up the shortcut for the limited user so that s/he doesn't have to type in the admin password. (Nice that you don't have to give that out!)

I'd suggest using WinXP's Help function to search for info on those terms. Ask if you have questions.

- Collin

 

[SUOrangeman]

Are you using the XP Welcome Screen and not all of you account show there? Press CTRL+ATL+DEL *TWICE* to get a normal log on dialog. All of your accounts should be accessible from there.

As a user with administrator privileges, run Computer Management by right-clicking on My Computer. There should be Local Users and Groups folders (or similar) down in there. *I PREFER* to have one lone Administrator account (can be renamed without any problems), with the rest of my accounts as "Power Users." An account MUST be at least a Power User in order to edit and maintain its own registry (Netscape and other great tools require something like that). Any time you really need Admin rights, you can use the Run As... service.

-SUO

 

[c0rv1d43]

Any time you really need Admin rights, you can use the Run As... service.

Yes -- unless the one-and-only admin account has been borked by a bad install procedure or some other minion of Murphy. Okay, I know it doesn't happen often, but it DOES happen. Even Microsoft thinks it's a good idea to have two admin accounts on most systems.

Okay, I'll be quiet now.

- Collin

 

[JamesC]

Hi Collin

You were right, if i use RUNAS all programs work fine, however what i am a bit confused about is the /SAVECRED function. I looked it up on help but could not find very much. At the moment it requires me to put my password in every time - if i could set up a shortcut to wintv and get asusprobe to run automatically that would be great.

Thanks for your help,
James

 

[c0rv1d43]

Okay, let's take a hypothetical situation.

name and location of program you wish to run under different credentials: C:\Program Files\DOIT\doit.exe
machine name: mypc
limited user name: george
user name of admin account under whose credentials you wish to run "doit": gertrude

While logged in under any admin account go to the Start Menu folder for the limited user account and locate the shortcut to the program you want her/him to be able to run under admin credentials. Right click on that shortcut and choose Properties from the context menu. In the Target field of the Shortcut tab of the Properties dialg for the shortcut you would enter

runas /savecred /user:mypc\gertrude "C:\Program Files\DOIT\doit.exe"

and OK your way out of the dialog. Now log out and log back in as "george". Click on the doit program shortcut. A CMD prompt will come up and ask you for the password. You enter the password for gertrude's account. (The cursor will not move.) Hit the Enter key. The program should run. After this, when you click on the shortcut as george doit will run under gertrude's credentials without asking for a password.

- Collin

Edit: BTW, I should have suggested looking in the help file for RUNAS at the CMD prompt. I don't know whether or not the info in the regular Windows help file is as useful. Just open a CMD prompt and type "runas /?" (without the quotes) and hit the Enter key. You'll get a screen that tells you about the various switches available for the command. Unfortunately, the /SAVECRED switch does not work with the Windows 2000 version of RUNAS, nor does it work in WinXP Home Edition. But, since you have WinXP Pro, you should be okay. Hope this helps.

 

[JamesC]

Thanks a lot for the help Collin,
I tried what you suggested however i hit one flaw.
On my computer there are 4 accounts: Administrator (i.e the original account), James (me, also an administrator account), Zoe (a limited account) and the Guest account.
I go into the Start Menu folder (C/Documents and Settings/Zoe/Start Menu/Programs) and i cannot find the WinTv file or any of the files in my start menu for that matter (is this the right file).
I dont understand it myself and but i sure would appreciate your help,
Thanks alot again for your help Collin,
James

 

[c0rv1d43]

Oops. I should have mentioned that possibility. It's possible that the shortcut you see for that program when you're in the limited accounts actually resides in the All Users account. You can place a shortcut for each user in his own account by just copying the shortcut in Explorer.

Sorry about that oversight.

If I've misunderstood what you're saying or if you have problems please let me know. We should be able to get this worked out.

- Collin

 

[JamesC]

Hi Collin,
I am still having probs with getting this to run.
Here is what i have done. I went into C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs and copied the WinTv shortcut to C:\Documents and Settings\Zoe\Start Menu\Programs.
Then i went to the target line and typed:
runas.exe /savecred/user:zoe.\Administrator "C:\Program Files\WinTV\WinTV2K.EXE" -cg
Which was automatically then changed to
C:\WINDOWS\system32\runas.exe /savecred/user:zoe.\Administrator "C:\Program Files\WinTV\WinTV2K.EXE" -cg
I should mention at this point that the machine name is zoe, and there is also a user called Zoe (a bit dumb i know).
Anyway here is what happens. I go into the user account Zoe, find the WinTv icon (which has now changed to indicate that it is a kind of dos prog i think). I click on this Icon and a black dos box comes up with writing in it for all of 1 second and dissapears. Then nothing at all. I tried putting in spaces at different places in the target line but no change. If i click find target it takes me to the runas prog in C:\WINDOWS\system32.

Not sure what i am doing wrong exactly, as ever your help is greatly appreciated,
James

 

[c0rv1d43]

I am still having probs with getting this to run.
Here is what i have done. I went into C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs and copied the WinTv shortcut to C:\Documents and Settings\Zoe\Start Menu\Programs.
Then i went to the target line and typed:
runas.exe /savecred/user:zoe.\Administrator "C:\Program Files\WinTV\WinTV2K.EXE" -cg
Which was automatically then changed to
C:\WINDOWS\system32\runas.exe /savecred/user:zoe.\Administrator "C:\Program Files\WinTV\WinTV2K.EXE" -cg

I should mention at this point that the machine name is zoe, and there is also a user called Zoe (a bit dumb i know).
Anyway here is what happens. I go into the user account Zoe, find the WinTv icon (which has now changed to indicate that it is a kind of dos prog i think). I click on this Icon and a black dos box comes up with writing in it for all of 1 second and dissapears. Then nothing at all. I tried putting in spaces at different places in the target line but no change. If i click find target it takes me to the runas prog in C:\WINDOWS\system32.

Okay, two things:

1. I don't know for certain whether or not it's okay to have a computer and a user name be the same (or nearly the same). I wouldn't do it just because it seems akin to asking for trouble. I'd change one or the other, at least if nothing else you try fixes things up. (Try dealing with point number 2 first.)

2. The other point I would make is that I believe that I see at least two errors that you're entering in your target line information. You need a space between the /savecred switch and the /user switch, and the period (.) doesn't belong there after zoe. If the computer name is zoe and the admin user name is Administrator then I believe that the Targe field should contain

C:\WINDOWS\system32\runas.exe /savecred/user:zoe\Administrator "C:\Program Files\WinTV\WinTV2K.EXE" -cg

if we can assume that the -cg is a parameter of the WinTV2K.EXE executable.

I hope this is helpful.

- Collin

 

[c0rv1d43]

Hi, I'm back with a note. Your question about giving a computer and a user the same name kind of worried me. I'd never seen anyone do that before. I did some research. Take a look at this link:

http://www.jsiinc.com/SUBI/tip4300/rh4384.htm

You'll note that the information there states that Windows XP implements a check to preven you from giving a computer and a user the same name. If I understood you correctly you named your computer zoe and one of the users Zoe. Maybe the check allows you to get away with that because the first letter of one is capitalized and the other isn't? Did you first create the user Zoe and then rename the computer zoe, perhaps? Only thing I can think is that NetBIOS names are not case sensitive, and that's what this check is supposed to pertain to. But whether or not you were able to do it, I'd say that it wasn't a wise practice and that you should change one of them. Since the machine is probably never a member of a domain (?) it's probably easiest to change the computer name. (It will require a reboot, I believe.)

BTW, the parent site of that link above, http://www.jsiinc.com/reghack.htm, is Jerold Schulman's site. I've dealt with this guy off an on for years. I knew him from some old CompuServe forums. His site is a terrific online aid, and there's a downloadable version of it available. I also get stuff like the resource kits through him. Can't say enough about the quality of the information at that site.

I hope some of this info is helpful to you.

- Collin

 

[JamesC]

Hi Collin,
I copied and pasted the command you wrote in and no success. I then changed the name of the computer to "maincomputer" and changed the command to this:
C:\WINDOWS\system32\runas.exe /savecred/user:maincomputer\Administrator "C:\Program Files\WinTV\WinTV2K.EXE" -cg
still no luck i am afraid.
I have got no idea what is going on. I still just get the black screen but it dissappears so fast i cannot read the writing. Any ideas?
Thanks
James

 

[JamesC]

By the way if i log into zoe's account and use runas in the rightclick menu and type my password in it works fine
James

 

[c0rv1d43]

I'm assuming that you rebooted after changing the computer name. Okay, so you enetered

C:\WINDOWS\system32\runas.exe /savecred/user:maincomputer\Administrator "C:\Program Files\WinTV\WinTV2K.EXE" -cg

in the Target field of the Properties dialog for the shortcut, then you logged out of the admin account and logged in as the user Zoe, and it still didn't work. I see that there's still no space between the /savecred switch and the /user switch in that command line. I don't know if that's the way you actually typed it or not. There does have to be a space. I'm also not absolutely sure of how the -cg parameter should be used with respect to whether or not it should be inside the quotation marks or even if nested quotation marks may be necessary. (I haven't had to use runas with any program that required such a parameter.) Maybe you should experiment a little.

- Collin

 

[JamesC]

Collin you are a genious,

I moved the cg inside the quotation marks and it worked perfectly. Thanks so much, it is really really good to have that sorted.
I was wondering if i could do the same with Asus probe but wasnt quite sure how to go about it. Seeing as it starts up automatically i would have thought it would have been in the start up file C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Startup However that is not the case.
Do you have any ideas on that one? I used to be pretty good on ME but XP is much more complicated - i do think that XP is much much better though and i am learning all the time.
Thanks very very much for all your help so far,
James

 

[c0rv1d43]

Originally posted by: JamesC
Collin you are a genious,
I moved the cg inside the quotation marks and it worked perfectly. Thanks so much, it is really really good to have that sorted.

I am old fart retired physicist. I've spent the greatest portion of my life fiddling with one little detail after another and then testing a system to see what changes in behavior were brought about by each little change I've made. If you sit there and fiddle patiently with a puzzle just one-piece-at-a-time you're bound to learn something -- eventually.

I was wondering if i could do the same with Asus probe but wasnt quite sure how to go about it. Seeing as it starts up automatically i would have thought it would have been in the start up file C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Startup However that is not the case.
Do you have any ideas on that one? I used to be pretty good on ME but XP is much more complicated - i do think that XP is much much better though and i am learning all the time.

I know nothing about Asus Probe, just as I was also not familiar with your other application. Perhaps someone will have specific knowledge and suggestions for you. In the meantime, I can suggest a general course of action that should enable us to learn how this program is started and from where it is started. The easiest and best tools for determining what we need to know are the Services applet in Administrative Tools and a third party applet named Startup Control Panel. It's a tiny, truly splendid little utility that you can download at Mike Lin's site. I suggest that you download the Control Panel applet version rather than the standalone executable version.

Before we embark on the exercise of using Startup Control Panel and the Services applet, however, let me ask for a bit of information about Asus Probe. What is/are the purpose(s) of this program? Does it function properly when you are logged in under an administrative level account? Regarding the purpose of the program, please be as specific as you can be. The information you give me may help us to figure out whether or not this program installs any services or device drivers as well as non-service startup processes. That information could be very helpful to us in troubleshooting.

If you already know the names of any non-service processes which are run by Asus Probe you can run Startup Control Panel while logged in as an admin user in whose profile Asus Probe works. (The Startup Control Panel applet will be labeld "Startup" under Other Control Panel Options in the left side of the default "Categories View" of the Control Panel. If you're using the "classic" view of the Control Panel you'll just see in in the main window, again listed as "Startup".) Look in the various windows of the applet to find all of the various startup processes that are launched from various locations in the registry and in various startup folders. You can report which processes are listed in which tabbed window so that we know what process starts from which location.

Thanks very very much for all your help so far,
James

You're welcome. I hope we'll be able to get you acquainted with several means of finding and controlling startup processes so that you'll have a solid grasp of how to proceed when you need to make a high permissions level application run in a lower permissions level account.

- Collin

 

[JamesC]

Hi Collin,

Asus PC probe monitors:
CPU temp
MB temp
CPU fan
Power fan
Chassis fan
+12v
+5v
+3.3v
vcore

and it alarms if any settings go above or below set parameters. It runs in the taskbar to the right and starts up when the computer starts up.

I wont be in touch for a couple of days as i am heading off shortly to my University graduation. Will reply when i get back.
take care
James

 

[c0rv1d43]

Congratulations, James!

- Collin