How do I create administrator rights on my laptop?

[Maryn]

Hi
My brother has a latitude laptop with windows XP. Long story short - he only has a guest account on it, he needs to set up an administrator account so that he can do stuff basically!!!! As the guest account doesn't let you do much other than change your wallpaper!! Anybody know how to get around this. The problem seems to have occured after someone tried to connect him to a network with a different domain name to his previous network and he has been locked out since.
Thanks in advance!!
:mad:

[Budfred]

I can think of 2 options that would probably do it. One is to reinstall fresh... Drastic and hopefully not needed.

Second is to run the Repair Install feature from the WinXP CD and see if that will allow him to set himself up as administrator.

Whatever he does, he needs to put a password on the administrator and remember it so no one can change access again.

Don't act on either of these options until people with more experience with WinXP stop by and give their ideas...

[pentachris]

It is supposed to be impossible to delete the only account with administrative rights, or to change the only account with administrative rights to non-administrator. For this very reason.

Have you gone to User Accounts in the control panel and verified that there's only one account and that it's not set up as an administrator?

[Mark Miller]

I was just reading up on this on the MS site and Win XP will not let you just have a guest account, there has to be a admin account. So Pent is right and check user profiles from the control panel. Very strange if there is no admin account at all.
Mark:confused:

[Paul Komski]

Assuming that the default Administrator Account was never renamed (this is different from giving a name to an Account with Admin rights) and that either no password was ever created for Administrator or that the password is known...

... then ...

Log Off from the Start Button

Press Ctrl+Alt+Del

Enter Administrator as the Logon Name

Enter the appropriate password if one was ever set

Hopefully this will get you in as Administrator and then Bob's your uncle thereafter.

[Maryn]

Hi guys!
Thanks for all your help, my brother's laptop is fixed now and back to normal! Thanks again.

Mary N:D

[Budfred]

Thanks for letting us know that you got it fixed.... Can you tell us how you fixed it???:)

[Maryn]

Hi
Sorry it's taken so long to get back to you. My brother sends his thanks and said that Paul Komski's answer was the one that fixed the problem for him.

Thanks again!

Mary
:D