Windows XP Account Locked Out and Half-Deleted

Question

This morning I used remote desktop to access my user account on my work machine, and everything was fine. When I came into work, Windows said my account had been locked out. I rebooted, and Windows automatically logged into the default Administrator account instead of prompting me for the password of my normal account.

I looked at User Accounts in the control panel, and I did not see my user account listed, as if it were deleted. But when I log off Administrator and try to log back in with my user account's credentials, it says my account is locked out. So it's not quite deleted...

Any idea what's happening? Is there a way to get it back? I would do a system restore, but system restore is turned off.

Oh, one more thing: When my computer took me to the Administrator account for the first time, there was an error saying explorer.exe had crashed.

Answer 1

Before you do anything, you should back up your user folder. On windows XP, this can be found in C:\documents and settings{your user name}

Make sure that you get a backup copy of this, and you can see the files in your desktop and "my documents" folders.

If you can't get access to it, you may have to delete the user, then recreate it. (Files backed up (above) can be copied after you manage to log back in)

Answer 2

Log in with Admin account and then:

• Right click on My Computer and select Manage.
• Click on System Tools.
• Click on Local Users and Groups.
• Select Users
• Select your locked account.
• Right click & select Properties.
• Uncheck Account is locked out.