administrator capabilities

Question

Hope this is the right place to post this. I was trying to protect my kids computer so decided to give them limited access and create another account as the administrator. I did the change about a month ago. Now that we want to download something it is telling me that I need to have admin capabilities, but when I go to user accounts, there is not admin log in. I have another Dell in the house and set it up the same way with no problem. I looked on the microsoft website for details on how to log in as admin, but it also is not working. It says to call up windows explorer, right click, run as then on that screen type the name, password and domain. There is no administrator name, just some other one I never heard of, and no place for the domain. What am I doing wrong? I have XP home edition on both computers. Can anyone help me figure out what happened to the admin log in? Also if i do a system restore to before I change the user accounts, will it go back to the way it was or is that one of the things that won't change back? Thanks

jmwills · Answer

As the parent, your account should have Administrator rights. If you go into the Control Panel and then to the User Account applet, you will see your account there and a description with it stating what level of permissions you have. If your account is limited, then elevate to Admin rights with this process.

Go back to the Control Panel and highlight the User Applet. Do a Left Shift + Right Click with the mouse and you should see "Run As" hit that and type in Administrator and leave the password blank, unless you have changed it. You are now running the application with Admin rights without logging off and back on.

Any System Restore would chnage this.

Now one last thing..if the Admin Accoutn does not have a password on it, put one there. make sure it is at least a little complex (inlcudes specials such as *&$@$ and some numbers. A total of 8 charcters is plenty for most home users.

julielo · Answer

well let me take that back. I can't do a system restore because I don't have administrator capabilities. And I don't have admin capabilities because I can't find a way to have a an option to log in as admin. OMG I am getting very frustrated!!! Any more help please

julielo · Answer

well let me take that back. I can't do a system restore because I don't have administrator capabilities. And I don't have admin capabilities because I can't find a way to have a an option to log in as admin. OMG I am getting very frustrated!!! Any more help please

julielo · Answer

I appreciate your help, but part of the problem is when I do the 'run as' i get an error when I enter 'administrator.' with or without a password. When I set it up, I did use a password to have better protection. I just don't understand why I am not even getting a prompt. If I understand you correctly, a system restore will work, so I think I will just use that. thanks

jmwills · Answer

Sounds like you are entering the wrong password for the account.

NemesisDB · Answer

do you see the administrator account on the welcome screen when you boot to safe mode?

julielo · Answer

there is no account for me to enter a wrong password. I can't even get the Administrator login to come up. Just the kids limited ones. even starting the 'run as' I cannot even get the Administrator log in.

NemesisDB · Answer

click adminsitrator to sign in.  enter your password if you need it.  from there, go to control panel and then users.  you will now be able to change your other account as needed.

julielo · Answer

yes I do !!!!!! now what?

julielo · Answer

you are wonderful. thank you so much for the help. If you don't mind me asking another question....if you don't wnat to be bothered, I understand. But the reason I wanted to change the kids to limited was so that they couldn't download a bunch of junk. But I downloaded something for them, underthe admin, but the only time I can use it is if I am logged in as admin. I thought as a admin I could download something, but it would then be available for any user on the computer. Any help/ or suggestions where I can get some knowledge on this?

NemesisDB · Answer

a lot can depend on your settings and some can depend whether you have XP Pro or XP Home. Generally though, the "my documents" series of folders is specific to a given user (each account has their own). administrators can typically see everyone's my documents folder if they browse the hard drive (C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\My Documents). Limited users may not be able to.

If you save the file to a more generic area of the harddrive or to the 'my documents' folder of the specific limited user, they should then be able to access it.

Limited users can also have problems installing or running some software. The trick posted a few posts above about running a single program with administrative rights, may help in this case.

joetrombolie · Answer

hey there,  I read your problem with not letting otheres use a program after you downloaded it.  click on properties for the downloaded program and on the sharing tab.  choose to share this program with other users.   sandy

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administrator capabilities

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