Hello, I have a problem with a customer of mine who has created another user profile and in doing so, "lost" the ability to log in to her "default" Administrator account. I am trying to help her over the phone and it has been somewhat exasperating ... I have tried having her look into the user profile settings from the System Properties window and I then tried to her to "copy to" the Administrator account into the default user, but she says that it won't continue copying because of some long drawn out error during the Confirm Copy stage ... my question is there an easier way to restore the original default Administrator Account as the current user? I think there is, but I am not sure on how to go about it ... any help would be greatly appreciated ... thanks in advance ...

AKHandyman

If the only active user on the system is the 'Administrator' account, then it will display on the welcome screen. If you create another user, it will hide the 'Administrator' account and only show your created user.

from here you have 4 options:
1. delete the second user account that was created (please be 100% sure before deleting it because if my diagnosis of the problem is wrong, you may not be able to login)
2. on the welcome screen, have hit hit Ctrl+Alt+Delete twice in a row to close the welcome screen and display the 'Classic Logon' which will allow her to type in the username 'Administrator' and whatever password she normally used with that account
3. in Control Panel->Users Click 'Change the way users log on and off' and set it to 'Classic' to bypass the welcome screen and display the username/password box from option 2
4. edit the registry to show administrator on the welcome screen instructions for XP are here Changing that in Vista is more complex and not worth the trouble IMO.

5. Have her start it in safe mode which will automatically display the Administrator account or what ever the Administrator account has been renamed to.