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#1
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doing RESTORE created new administrator account. Why?
I recently wanted to go back in time on my winXP box and used "system
restore" to go back to a known good point in time. All went well, except that for some strange reason doing this caused winXP to create a new profile (named "Administrator.hostname") and use it instead of the perfectly good profile named "Administrator". Why? How can I keep this from happening in the future? How, short of using regedit, can I go back to the old profile name (maybe just deleting the profile called "administrator" and renaming the new one to have the name "administrator". thanks, |
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#2
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doing RESTORE created new administrator account. Why?
GrandpaFerret wrote:
I recently wanted to go back in time on my winXP box and used "system restore" to go back to a known good point in time. All went well, except that for some strange reason doing this caused winXP to create a new profile (named "Administrator.hostname") and use it instead of the perfectly good profile named "Administrator". Why? How can I keep this from happening in the future? How, short of using regedit, can I go back to the old profile name (maybe just deleting the profile called "administrator" and renaming the new one to have the name "administrator". Don't just go *deleting* something. There may be a reason the new profile got created (something defective in it, etc). Plus - why are you using the built-in administrator account anyway? Bad plan. In any case - reboot and logon as any other user (other than "administrator") with administrative level access. Rename the "administrator.hostname" account to "administrator.OLD" and rename the "administrator" account to "administrator.hostname". Reboot. Log on as "administrator". That work? (Truthfully - the registry edit thing works just as well.) If it doesn;t work - then *something* is wrong with that old profile. Copy the data (My Documents, Desktop, Start Menu, Email profiles, etc) from the old profile into the new one and just continue using it. -- Shenan Stanley MS-MVP -- How To Ask Questions The Smart Way http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html |
#3
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doing RESTORE created new administrator account. Why?
GrandpaFerret wrote: I recently wanted to go back in time on my winXP box and used "system restore" to go back to a known good point in time. All went well, except that for some strange reason doing this caused winXP to create a new profile (named "Administrator.hostname") and use it instead of the perfectly good profile named "Administrator". Why? How can I keep this from happening in the future? How, short of using regedit, can I go back to the old profile name (maybe just deleting the profile called "administrator" and renaming the new one to have the name "administrator". Don't just go *deleting* something. There may be a reason the new profile got created (something defective in it, etc). Plus - why are you using the built-in administrator account anyway? Bad plan. In any case - reboot and logon as any other user (other than "administrator") with administrative level access. Rename the "administrator.hostname" account to "administrator.OLD" and rename the "administrator" account to "administrator.hostname". Reboot. Log on as "administrator". That work? (Truthfully - the registry edit thing works just as well.) If it doesn;t work - then *something* is wrong with that old profile. Copy the data (My Documents, Desktop, Start Menu, Email profiles, etc) from the old profile into the new one and just continue using it. -- Shenan Stanley MS-MVP -- How To Ask Questions The Smart Way http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html |
#4
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doing RESTORE created new administrator account. Why?
http://sf.net/projects/reprofiler
"GrandpaFerret" wrote: I recently wanted to go back in time on my winXP box and used "system restore" to go back to a known good point in time. All went well, except that for some strange reason doing this caused winXP to create a new profile (named "Administrator.hostname") and use it instead of the perfectly good profile named "Administrator". Why? How can I keep this from happening in the future? How, short of using regedit, can I go back to the old profile name (maybe just deleting the profile called "administrator" and renaming the new one to have the name "administrator". thanks, |
#5
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doing RESTORE created new administrator account. Why?
http://sf.net/projects/reprofiler "GrandpaFerret" wrote: I recently wanted to go back in time on my winXP box and used "system restore" to go back to a known good point in time. All went well, except that for some strange reason doing this caused winXP to create a new profile (named "Administrator.hostname") and use it instead of the perfectly good profile named "Administrator". Why? How can I keep this from happening in the future? How, short of using regedit, can I go back to the old profile name (maybe just deleting the profile called "administrator" and renaming the new one to have the name "administrator". thanks, |
#6
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doing RESTORE created new administrator account. Why?
Thanks for the help!
The "problem" profile should have been "clean"... it was created very recently as part of an OS reload (from scratch, disk wiped, using unattend). I cant imagine why windows thought there was a problem with it. It is very good to know that it did think there was a problem and that was the reason why it created the new profile. Shenan, Is there any log file left lying around that would tell me what the OS found objectionable in the profile? And yes, I know. I am a long time UNIX sysadmin and know better then leaving root lying around... but last time I checked (windows 98 probably) we were stuck with the Administrator account in windows. I will check into if it can be removed in XP or not now that you have fussed at me about it. Anteaus - thanks for the link. Maybe this tool can shed some light on why XP thought the old profile was bad. Thanks to both of you. |
#7
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doing RESTORE created new administrator account. Why?
Thanks for the help! The "problem" profile should have been "clean"... it was created very recently as part of an OS reload (from scratch, disk wiped, using unattend). I cant imagine why windows thought there was a problem with it. It is very good to know that it did think there was a problem and that was the reason why it created the new profile. Shenan, Is there any log file left lying around that would tell me what the OS found objectionable in the profile? And yes, I know. I am a long time UNIX sysadmin and know better then leaving root lying around... but last time I checked (windows 98 probably) we were stuck with the Administrator account in windows. I will check into if it can be removed in XP or not now that you have fussed at me about it. Anteaus - thanks for the link. Maybe this tool can shed some light on why XP thought the old profile was bad. Thanks to both of you. |
#8
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doing RESTORE created new administrator account. Why?
The built in Administrator account cannot be removed. However, you can
rename the account to something less obvious. And, you should give it a password which is not obvious to one and all. Jim "GrandpaFerret" wrote in message news Thanks for the help! The "problem" profile should have been "clean"... it was created very recently as part of an OS reload (from scratch, disk wiped, using unattend). I cant imagine why windows thought there was a problem with it. It is very good to know that it did think there was a problem and that was the reason why it created the new profile. Shenan, Is there any log file left lying around that would tell me what the OS found objectionable in the profile? And yes, I know. I am a long time UNIX sysadmin and know better then leaving root lying around... but last time I checked (windows 98 probably) we were stuck with the Administrator account in windows. I will check into if it can be removed in XP or not now that you have fussed at me about it. Anteaus - thanks for the link. Maybe this tool can shed some light on why XP thought the old profile was bad. Thanks to both of you. |
#9
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doing RESTORE created new administrator account. Why?
The built in Administrator account cannot be removed. However, you can
rename the account to something less obvious. And, you should give it a password which is not obvious to one and all. Jim "GrandpaFerret" wrote in message news Thanks for the help! The "problem" profile should have been "clean"... it was created very recently as part of an OS reload (from scratch, disk wiped, using unattend). I cant imagine why windows thought there was a problem with it. It is very good to know that it did think there was a problem and that was the reason why it created the new profile. Shenan, Is there any log file left lying around that would tell me what the OS found objectionable in the profile? And yes, I know. I am a long time UNIX sysadmin and know better then leaving root lying around... but last time I checked (windows 98 probably) we were stuck with the Administrator account in windows. I will check into if it can be removed in XP or not now that you have fussed at me about it. Anteaus - thanks for the link. Maybe this tool can shed some light on why XP thought the old profile was bad. Thanks to both of you. |
#10
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doing RESTORE created new administrator account. Why?
Thanks Jim. Saved me a bit of research. Appreciate it.
reprofiler did not turn up anything interesting at first blush... just that the old admin profile exists and is not associated with a user. One thing I noticed after I made the orignal post in this thread.... I dont know how to explain this.... its an area of XP i have never understood. To put it in UNIX terms, in XP there is what seem to be a "hard link" aka ln(1) to each users "my document" directory in the profile from "my computer". Now, "my computer" has always struck me as a strange beast.... Anyway, after I did the restore (which broke the link to the old Admin profile and setup a new profile Administrator.hostname).... this "hard link" disappeared... at the My Computer "folder" I have Shared Documents, user1's Documents, user2's Documents, etc... but no Administrator's Documents (or Administrator.hostname's Documents) Could someone expound on this sub-topic for me? Still hoping (previously ask) for info on how to tell what it was XP did not like ab out the original administrator profile. Thanks |
#11
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doing RESTORE created new administrator account. Why?
Thanks Jim. Saved me a bit of research. Appreciate it.
reprofiler did not turn up anything interesting at first blush... just that the old admin profile exists and is not associated with a user. One thing I noticed after I made the orignal post in this thread.... I dont know how to explain this.... its an area of XP i have never understood. To put it in UNIX terms, in XP there is what seem to be a "hard link" aka ln(1) to each users "my document" directory in the profile from "my computer". Now, "my computer" has always struck me as a strange beast.... Anyway, after I did the restore (which broke the link to the old Admin profile and setup a new profile Administrator.hostname).... this "hard link" disappeared... at the My Computer "folder" I have Shared Documents, user1's Documents, user2's Documents, etc... but no Administrator's Documents (or Administrator.hostname's Documents) Could someone expound on this sub-topic for me? Still hoping (previously ask) for info on how to tell what it was XP did not like ab out the original administrator profile. Thanks |
#12
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doing RESTORE created new administrator account. Why?
I went to take a look at the old Administrator's profile using regedit... and
guess what. ntuser.dat is missing! There is a ntuser.dat.LOG, but the user profile itself is missing. How in the heck did system restore screw things up that badly? That profile was there and healthy (more or less) at the time I made the restore point. Looks like a bug in XP to me. |
#13
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doing RESTORE created new administrator account. Why?
I went to take a look at the old Administrator's profile using regedit... and guess what. ntuser.dat is missing! There is a ntuser.dat.LOG, but the user profile itself is missing. How in the heck did system restore screw things up that badly? That profile was there and healthy (more or less) at the time I made the restore point. Looks like a bug in XP to me. |
#14
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doing RESTORE created new administrator account. Why?
Almost certainly there has been disk corruption, and probably chkdsk has
deleted the file in a startup scan. You may be able to recover a copy of it from the system-restore data as follows: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307545 This page refers to restoring the system registry, but the user registry is backed-up too. You need to find the SID of the administrator user, and locate the appropriate REGISTRY_USER_NTUSER file inside the "System Volume Information" folder. You don't need to use the recovery console for this, but you need to give the Administrators group read permissions to the System Volume Information folder. Reprofiler lists the account SIDs, scroll the user-window rightward to see them. The Administrator SID is usually 1-5-21-something-500 There may be several restore points, you need to decide which to use, Once you've identified the right REGISTRY_USER_NTUSER file in the restore-point's snapshot folder, copy it into the profile and rename it NTUSER.DAT "GrandpaFerret" wrote: I went to take a look at the old Administrator's profile using regedit... and guess what. ntuser.dat is missing! There is a ntuser.dat.LOG, but the user profile itself is missing. How in the heck did system restore screw things up that badly? That profile was there and healthy (more or less) at the time I made the restore point. Looks like a bug in XP to me. |
#15
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doing RESTORE created new administrator account. Why?
Almost certainly there has been disk corruption, and probably chkdsk has deleted the file in a startup scan. You may be able to recover a copy of it from the system-restore data as follows: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307545 This page refers to restoring the system registry, but the user registry is backed-up too. You need to find the SID of the administrator user, and locate the appropriate REGISTRY_USER_NTUSER file inside the "System Volume Information" folder. You don't need to use the recovery console for this, but you need to give the Administrators group read permissions to the System Volume Information folder. Reprofiler lists the account SIDs, scroll the user-window rightward to see them. The Administrator SID is usually 1-5-21-something-500 There may be several restore points, you need to decide which to use, Once you've identified the right REGISTRY_USER_NTUSER file in the restore-point's snapshot folder, copy it into the profile and rename it NTUSER.DAT "GrandpaFerret" wrote: I went to take a look at the old Administrator's profile using regedit... and guess what. ntuser.dat is missing! There is a ntuser.dat.LOG, but the user profile itself is missing. How in the heck did system restore screw things up that badly? That profile was there and healthy (more or less) at the time I made the restore point. Looks like a bug in XP to me. |
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