Windows 10: Stuck in Administrator Account

Hi guys,

I'm currently stuck in the Administrator Account.. I really only have one Windows account that has gotten stuck in this mode. I was hoping you could help me resolve this since it's now cutting into my productivity.

The machine is a two month old Alienware 17 R3 laptop with latest CPU & GPU, 32 GB ram. Operating system is Windows 10 Pro version 1511.

The thing has worked flawlessly so far and I've been happy with the Windows 10 experience for the most part, everything worked, etc. Not too long ago I had 'Run as Admin' while setting up some software that I need for work. I had used this feature before and never had a problem resuming normal operations. At some point recently, I started getting error messages stating that "This app can't open. Sign in with a different account and try again".



This seems to be the case for all or most of the built in Win10 apps such as Edge, Calculator etc.
I normally use Firefox so had blown this off for a bit, but now seeing I can't use the calculator and some other stuff I want to fix it.

I've closely followed your comprehensive tutorial https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/2...ows-10-a.html?
and followed the first three methods on how to disable the built-in elevated administrator account,



Each time (with three different methods) it appears that admin is currently disabled; You can see in the above screenshot that admin account appears to be disabled. But it turns out that it is not...
I still get the "This app can't open. Sign in with a different account and try again", message.

When I go to Setting/Accounts it shows that I have only one Windows Account and that is and Administrator Account..



It also shows that I only have one account option in the Start Menu..



So I tried to add another account.
But when in Account/Settings I try to click on "Add an account" or "Use in with a Microsoft Account instead", I see a window flash like a dialog box is about to open but then nothing happens. So I can't create an alternate regular privileged user account.

I wouldn't mind just having one account that is a superuser account, but I understand that there could be some security issues with that, potentially giving unwanted access to 'root'. Plus I want to be able to use the built-in calculator and other useful Windows tools.

I've never dealt with a Microsoft cloud-based account before and just recently set this up while checking out the app store after getting this new laptop. I was a little put off by what was a bit of a hijack, but I just went along and figured I could fix things later. I had originally planned to set it up to dual-boot Ubuntu right away, but haven't bothered yet since Windows 10 has been pretty stable and nice to have (plus most of my work related software only runs in Windows), but this is getting frustrating as I feel like I've gotten a bit stuck here... I started wondering if it may be caused by some sort of malware, but I run both Avast and AVG and did complete hard drive sweeps with both of them after this admin account thing started bugging me and they both came back saying clean bill of health with no threats or viruses.

So, I assume I need to add another account to this PC. Not sure why everything worked fine for two months with the one account and then I started getting error messages when trying to run apps and mixed messages about whether Admin account is truly disabled.

Any ideas on how to solve this and what the next steps I should take are? Please advise...
Thanks!

:)

 

Cannot login to Admin Account on PC .

I somehow gained access to Administrator account but my another admin and Microsoft account in inaccessible. I can't create new account as well.

So I'm now stuck with only administrator account.

 

Computer stuck in safe mode, Administrator account disabled (Windows 10)

Hi Sherry,

Thank you for posting in Microsoft Community, we appreciate your interest in Windows 10.

I understand the inconvenience caused to you with the user accounts in Windows 10.

Please provide us with the following information to understand the issue and assist you better:

• Have you changed the settings using msconfig to enter in to safe mode?
• Were you able to boot the system into normal mode?
• How many user accounts were created on your device?

Kindly provide us with the required information to assist you accordingly.

 

Hello quixotic, and welcome to Ten Forums. *Smile

See if you may be able to add a new account in an elevated command prompt using OPTION SIX in the tutorial below.

https://www.windowsphoneinfo.com/threads/add-local-account-or-microsoft-account-in-windows-10.8974/

This will only be a local standard account, so you would want to make this an administrator account after creating it.

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/6...dows-10-a.html

The account's user profile folder will only be created after you sign in to it for the first time.

 

Thank you for the help and the nice welcome, Brink!

That worked. I had to change the privilege on the new account to Administrator and then log in to the new account and change the other account to regular user, and then had to restart the computer for it to take effect.

Now my VPN doesn't work in standard user mode and can't "run as admin", but I'm pretty sure I can log into both accounts and work around this.

Great forums and articles BTW, very impressed with this site, I'm sure I'll be around to learn more about fully using Windows.
Thanks again!

 

I'm glad it could help. *Smile