Windows 10: user local and admin accounts missing

Since a about a week my local user account and my admin account are gone. With it, the documents, pictures and downloads directories are nearly empty, only the most recent documents are listed. Luckily I save most of my documents on other drives but I would like to find my old standard directories and the possibility to act as admin back. I use my PC as a private user, nobody else uses it. I now only have a public account left, so I cannot use the possibilities that an admin has. I did not do anything special on the PC, and if I look back in the history of updates, it look like the update of 14 april is the last change. I did take a look at windows/old but that dates back to 2012. So that does not help either.

So my questons are:


1 How can I get my old useraccounts and the standard directories of documents, pictures etc. back? Do I loose the files that were listed there if those directoreis are not found anymore; I cannot find those files with explorer

2 how can I become an admin again? How do I create such an account?

Thnx for any help.

:)

 

My admin account switched to a user account!

The first of the many diagrams in this thread show that the link Sign in with a local account instead is displayed for the account that is currently logged on and so the reversion procedure might work for this account. For normal circumstances, that would initiate the conversion back to a local account for the user account currently logged in - see my 23rd & 26th September 2016 posts in revert to local account from one converted to MSAccount. I have no way of knowing how Windows will react to an attempt to use this procedure for the Built-In Admin account and I do not know if that link Sign in with a local account instead will be displayed or not.

I think I side-stepped this issue by suggesting that that

• An extra password-protected Admin level account is created, and
• The Built-In Admin is disabled, and
• The recovery attempt focuses on whichever existing user account remains active afterwards.

Personally, I would reinstall Windows 10 without even attempting this recovery. Installation takes very little effort once everything is backed up and the only necessary user interactions are right at the start & right at the end so it can be initiated before making a pot of tea. It took about 30, 60 & 90 minutes for each of my computers [the 30 minuter is 6 months old, the 60 minuter is 7 years old, 90 minuter is 12 years old].

Raner - I am trying to avoid sounding like I am nagging you into doing a clean install.

• Once you have recovered the existing user account you can attempt to re-enable & remove the MSAccount link from your Built-In Admin if that link appears in Settings, Accounts.
• Bree says it cannot be done and I think the same but I have never tried - I have never been able to get to Settings using the Built-In Admin because it cannot run any Windows 10 Apps so I do not know how it can be done [but the diagrams in Bree's link shows that those users got there].
• Even though I have the safety of having created two spare password-protected Admin accounts I would not want to know that my Built-In Admin was sitting in the background but unable to help me if my other accounts were corrupted.

Denis

 

My admin account switched to a user account!

You have not posted a screenshot of the Settings, Accounts, My family & other animals list or the list of folders within C:\Users\... so we do not know the whole story.

You will also need to use a set of net user commands, such as Net user Garcia-1, to identify your user accounts so start with Net user on its own and then work through each user name it lists. {Ignore these user accounts - Administrator, DefaultAccount} There is some guidance on interpreting the results in section 1 of If the Admin prompt has a greyed out or missing Yes button but no password entry box, use the Built-In Admin account in Safe mode to create two new Admin accounts - Wiki The username listed by the Net user command should normally match the user folder path with C:\Users\... but this is not true for accounts that were created as local user accounts and only later converted into MSAccount-linked user accounts.

By the way, in the picture you showed above, Administrators [plural] is a red herring and nothing to be worried about. Administrators [plural] is a group of users - all those accounts with Admin-level status belong to this group.

You have obscured the email addresses in the usernames so we here have no way of knowing whether or not the two user accounts are linked to the same MSAccount. Even if they are, they will have different folder paths within C:\Users\... If you have difficulty deciding which user account is related to which user folder then find out using the command prompt command wmic useraccount list full in combination with the RegEdit entry HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList.

Denis

 

Locked Out of Admin Account

Hello Linda,



Thank you for writing to Microsoft Community Forums.

1. Are you using a Microsoft account or a local account?
   
2. Which version of Windows 10 you are using currently?
   
3. Is the other user account an admin account?
   

I suggest you to try using the on screen keyboard at the login page and check if you are able to login to the PC.

1. At the login screen click on the
   ease of access icon at the bottom right hand corner.
   
2. Click on the on screen keyboard to open it.
   
3. Type the password and try to login.
   

If you are using a Microsoft account, I suggest you to refer the article on

how to reset your Microsoft account password.



However, if you are using a local account, then I suggest you to refer the article on

reset your Windows 10 local account password.



Note: While performing these steps, there might be a risk of data loss. You may take a backup of the data before performing the steps.



Hope it helps.

Let us know if you got the help you needed by clicking ‘Yes’ or ‘No’.



Regards,

Prakhar Khare

Microsoft Community – Moderator