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TL;DR version: Followed Online Tutorial, Modified Registry, Didn't Backup, Locked out of Administrator Account, Please Send Help.
Longer Version:
So, I was going to give my old laptop to my mom. I set up her user account (non-administrator) and left my own (administrator) account active. Since my mom is old and not tech-savvy, she became confused when Windows 10 presents her with 2 accounts on startup.
I, being a very lazy person, decided to just "hide" the entire administrator account by editing the registry by following this tutorial. It clearly states to do a full backup of my system, which I, lacking any sort of common sense, failed to do.
So I proceeded to edit HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon, created the subfolders SpecialAccounts > UserList, created a key with my administrator username, and set the key's value to 0.
I restarted my laptop.
It worked! The startup screen now shows only my mom's non-administrator account.
What I failed to realize was that this effectively locked me out of my administrator account.
While there are no important files that I need to recover, and I could probably live with having to never install any new programs on this laptop, it's kind of inconvenient for me to be locked out forever.
So, what I'd like to ask: Is there is any way that I can recover my administrative rights? FWIW, I don't need to recover files, just my rights.
Jenny
Posted 2016-12-15T16:10:59.933
Reputation: 1
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Boot to WinRE, load the registry hive, and reverse your actions. How to get rights of admin after I disabled all admin accounts in my computer
– Ramhound – 2016-12-15T16:13:11.663Worth pointing out that although the user is hidden it doesn't mean you can't still log into the account since its not actually disabled. – Ramhound – 2016-12-15T16:16:11.133
How about using reg add to change the value? – MrFregg – 2016-12-15T16:18:37.873
It might work, but the only account they claim to have access to, is an User account. – Ramhound – 2016-12-15T16:20:53.167
@MrFregg yup I only have access to a User account, so I'm barred from editing the registry from there. – Jenny – 2016-12-15T16:22:56.937
@Ramhound I'll give your suggestion a try, thank you! – Jenny – 2016-12-15T16:23:07.667