Never prompted to elevate privilege as administrator

I recently upgraded my W8.1 system to W10. I'm assuming my administrator password is the same as it was - I don't recall being prompted to change and save it - but, I'm never prompted for it. Instead, everytime I try to do something that requires administrative privilege (Manage my computer, install an .exe, run a CMD as administrator, etc.), my cursor goes to a spinning disk next to the arrow for 4-5 minutes or so - and then, I get this pop-up:



I'm not sure if get the same complaint when I attempt to change my UAC setting, or whether it's simply ignored; but I never get the opportunity to change it here:



I'm tempted to revert back to 8.1 - it's been less than a month - but I don't know for sure that I won't have the same problems when I get there. I'd like to press on and stay with W10, if I can - but, I'll try to revert before I do a complete wipe and install.

Anyone have ideas about what I can try to get out of this mess?

adTHANKSvance,
Dan

I am logged into the "Dan" user account, non-administrative. From this account, I want to "Run As Administrator". Normally, I would be prompted for the administrator password. Now, I'm not.

Tonight, I tried the one other thing that occurred to me: From the cmd prompt,

runas /noprofile /user: DanPC\administrator cmd

This *does* prompt me for the administrator password. Alas, it does not appear to be what I set it to in W8.1.

This sounds promising - I will give it a try this weekend, when I have time. I admit to being confused, though - is "administrator" in the reference you cite:

net user administrator /active:yes

Different than the "administrator" I used in the cmd runas command? Is the "hidden" administrator account nameless, or if it has a name and isn't administrator, what is it?

Thanks
Dan

OK, I tried Dinesh's tutorial. First, here's a list of accounts for my machine:



I held down Shift and rebooted, and got the WinRE splash screen. I was prompted to log in, with "Dan" my only option:



If I clicked on "Don't see your account", I got this:



Is it suggesting that "Dan" is an administrator account? Oh, that it were so... I went back, selected the "Dan" account, and it booted into command prompt. I then attempted the first of Dinesh's instructions:



Hello darkness, my old friend... "Access Denied."

Dan