Enable Admin act. on 7?

Hi guys,

Had the mobo replaced on a 3 month old optiplex. Now I can't login with a domain account.

I know to fix by rejoining the domain. Guess what though, the Administrator account is disabled by default in 7 and I never enabled it!

I put the install disk in and got up the command prompt. Tried "net user administrator * /active:yes". Typed in a PW, still cannot login locally.
At the login screen when I try pcname\administrator and a blank password it says the account is disabled.

I know i've tried it more than 5 times, could I have locked the account? Even though apparently it's disabled?

Find more posts tagged with

Free for TechExams community: Cybersecurity salary guide

Compare cert salaries and plan your next career move

Button

Comments

vCole

well, the commands are: net user * (To give the local admin account a password) then net user administrator /active:yes

Not sure if you tried it this way.

Everyone

The 1st local account created (usually during the install process) is a member of the local admins group by default. You'll need to use that account (if it hasn't been changed via GPO or other means since this PC is a member of a domain you're talking about).

There's a good Linux based password reset tool, I think it can enable accounts too, but I can't remember the name of it right now. It's been a very long time since I've had to use it. It's a live CD, very easy to use.

RobertKaucher

vCole wrote: »

well, the commands are: net user * (To give the local admin account a password) then net user administrator /active:yes

Not sure if you tried it this way.

I would certainly try it this way. The net use command DOES NOT like to be told to do two things at once like set a password AND activate an account.

Tackle

vCole,

I'll try with that format...worth a shot.

Everyone,
I removed the account that I used during setup after I joined the domain. We don't have many Windows 7 machines and didn't know the administrator account was locked by default. We set the local admin PW via GP.

I'm trying to find a good download for PCLoginNow but the ones I've tried all fail to download. This one has a way to unlock as well as enable the account.

Tackle

Still says account is disabled. I tried the Guest account as well.

Everyone

LucasMN wrote: »

vCole,
Everyone,
I removed the account that I used during setup after I joined the domain. We don't have many Windows 7 machines and didn't know the administrator account was locked by default. We set the local admin PW via GP.

You'll probably want to enable the account via GPO if you haven't gone back in and done that already.

Although general best practice would include renaming it too.

Tackle

Everyone wrote: »

You'll probably want to enable the account via GPO if you haven't gone back in and done that already. Although general best practice would include renaming it too.

It's not available on the domain. I can't login with a domain account (Even domain Admin), can't even ping it by IP. I did check the leased addresses to get the IP.

"The trust relationship between this workstation and the primary domain failed"

Everyone

LucasMN wrote: »

It's not available on the domain. I can't login with a domain account (Even domain Admin), can't even ping it by IP. I did check the leased addresses to get the IP.

I meant for your other machines (and this one once you get it fixed) to avoid this in the future.

snokerpoker

net user administrator /active:yes has worked for me in the past

Does the command complete successfully? or is it giving you usage help?

I've done this successfully with the UBCD. I'd give that a shot.....

Tackle

Everyone wrote: »

I meant for your other machines (and this one once you get it fixed) to avoid this in the future.

Well of course...:D

snokerpoker,

I booted the PC to the OS DVD, "Repair my computer" opened a cmd prompt and typed that in. No dice. "net user" shows the Administrator and Guest account.

The command prompt was running from X:\Sources. I'm not 100% sure how the repair works, but I couldn't CD to C:\.

Tackle

snokerpoker wrote: »

Does the command complete successfully? or is it giving you usage help?

I've done this successfully with the UBCD. I'd give that a shot.....

It completes successfully. I'll see if I can find my UBCD4Win...might have something useful on there.

Everyone

I think most people would have just rebuilt the PC by now.

Tackle

Bah, it's a Software Developers PC. They are the only ones in the company I'm hesitant to rebuild...too many programs and configurations to remember, every user is different.

I got it though, followed the steps here:

Enable default Administrator account on my Windows 7 - Microsoft Answers

I could have had it figured out a couple hours ago if I would have been looking for dir

instead of C: which didn't turn up anything.

Thanks for the help!

mctwist

Everyone wrote: »

The 1st local account created (usually during the install process) is a member of the local admins group by default. You'll need to use that account (if it hasn't been changed via GPO or other means since this PC is a member of a domain you're talking about).

There's a good Linux based password reset tool, I think it can enable accounts too, but I can't remember the name of it right now. It's been a very long time since I've had to use it. It's a live CD, very easy to use.

The tool you're probably talking about is Offline Windows Password & Registry Editor.

It's hosted here: Offline Windows Password & Registry Editor

Works great, and if I remember correctly, it does have the option to enable an account.

Devilsbane

Don't you just have to go into safemode? Will need to know the password, but I seem to remember this being a fail safe.

When all else fails, why can't you just reimage the computer?

Tackle

Devilsbane wrote: »

Don't you just have to go into safemode? Will need to know the password, but I seem to remember this being a fail safe.

When all else fails, why can't you just reimage the computer?

Safe mode did not enable the administrator account. I read that as well...it said the password would be blank. This did not work.

Not every thing else failed. Post #14 has a link to the steps I used to solve it.
We do not do any imaging here.

Akaricloud

I've run across the same issue before and was able to resolve it by disabling and re-enabling the computer object in AD (or just enabling it if it is disabled). After that I was able to log in using my domain admin account.

Glad to see you figured out another solution though.