Windows 10: all accounts were changed to standard. No solution yet

[I have posted a similar question on answers.microsoft.com - no reply yet, I will repost them if any]

So, yesterday (Nov 7th 2019), I discovered that the only two accounts on my computer "admin" and "gh" were 'standard accounts'. They still are listed in the administrators group, though.

I tried to change the account type (Control Panel>…>User Accounts > Change Your Account Type) from Standard to Administrator. After I click on Administrator choice, the "Change Account Type" box is greyed out.What I tried not necessarily in that order is listed below: nothing I tried resolved the issue.

- make the (hidden) Administrator account visible
- use my local "admin" account to do the same changes
- restart in safe mode, use one of the admin/gh to either change the Account type of one of the account
- restart in safe mode, use the Administrator account to change the type of one of the account: The "Change Account Type" is NOT greyed out, but this does not resolved the problem: After reboot "admin" and "gh" are still "Standard"
- log in as Administrator in 'normal' mode (after a normal reboot). trying to change the account type as above, "Change Account Type" box is greyed out.

Microsoft support: the jury is still out:
- first try was really bad: the person asked me if I run a antivirus (yes, Avast, latest free version). Then he told me that reset to factory settings will solve the problem.
- second try was much better: the person seemed to know about the problem. Unfortunately my computer was installing a newer version of W10 (1903?). So we decided that I will call him again. Could not reach him...

So, in the meantime, I am counting on the community!

1. Has anyone solved this problem?

2. Can anyone suggest something (besides what has been tried already)?

3. Will a "reset Windows 10"-"Keep my files" help or could it worsen the situation? https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...s-10-reinstall

4. Should I wait before doing anything (e.g., a patch will come up for a never-encountered-yet issue)?

5. I can't think of something I did that could create the issue. I suspect something was installed by Microsoft during the night (I had a message saying my computer would be rebooting). I do not shutdown at night but hibernate. When I turned the PC on Nov. 7th, it was a cold boot. When I tried to get the shutdown-restarttime from the Event log, the latter was starting only after the fresh install of the large update. Is there any way I can access the previous event log?

Versions/updates:

- Windows 10, build 18362
- I run Windows updates from time to time only (turned off automatic updates), I may have updated last week or the 3rd of November (at that time, I have updated 5 or so drivers). No issues running between then and today.
- Unfortunately, update history does not show more than yesterday's updates plus a couple from June-July (Dell) or Adobe (Oct 24).
- Besides a bunch of Office updates, the only Microsoft ones are : KB4517389 (tagged 07-Nov-2019 and KB4521863 (tagged >>08-Nov-2019<<)



Thanks in advance for your responses.



Gilbert

Can you enable Administrator user account?

Try option 5 here:
Enable or Disable Elevated Administrator account in Windows 10

Note that Option 5 does not use an account on the computer to enable the built-in Administrator account. It does it from a command prompt achieved by booting from a Windows 10 installation USB flash drive or DVD.

ghxyzzy said:

I tried to change the account type (Control Panel>…>User Accounts > Change Your Account Type) from Standard to Administrator. After I click on Administrator choice, the "Change Account Type" box is greyed out.

Are you sure they've really changed to Standard? When you go to Change your account type, it's normal for Standard to be selected, because that's all you can change TO if you're Administrator. And as the Change Account Type button becomes greyed out when you select Administrator, I suspect that's because you're already Administrator (this is what happens for me, and I'm an Administrator). What's important is what's shown under your name or email address at the top, not next to the selection buttons.

Thanks to all.

NMI said:

Are you sure they've really changed to Standard? When you go to Change your account type, it's normal for Standard to be selected, because that's all you can change TO if you're Administrator. And as the Change Account Type button becomes greyed out when you select Administrator, I suspect that's because you're already Administrator (this is what happens for me, and I'm an Administrator). What's important is what's shown under your name or email address at the top, not next to the selection buttons.

This makes a lot of sense, because the initial issue I had was with writing files at a location I had writing access rights for long. I >suspect< some of the MS updates made minor (and may be major) changes all over the place, leading me to think that there was a change of account type, while there were not. For example, a number of applications had some parameters changed ((winamp, sync!it, excel 2007 stdole-broken, and probably more to come)

Maybe some other access control has been implemented - I see now some UAC-like warning while UAC is disabled. For example: I tried to copy a file to the Windows folder, and got a "UAC-like" window with title "Destination Folder Access Denied" and content" "You'll need to provide administrator permission to copy to this folder". When I click on "Continue", the copy is done. This behaviour looks new to me.

About other suggestions:

FreeBooter said:

Can you enable Administrator user account?

NavyLCDR said:

Try option 5 here:
Enable or Disable Elevated Administrator account in Windows 10
Note that Option 5 does not use an account on the computer to enable the built-in Administrator account. It does it from a command prompt achieved by booting from a Windows 10 installation USB flash drive or DVD.

Did that already (cf: - make the (hidden) Administrator account visible)

hawkman said:

Hi Gilbert,
greyed out basically means you havn't got high enough rights

Hence the point of my post... both accounts have had admin rights for a year and a half

ghxyzzy said:

Did that already (cf: - make the (hidden) Administrator account visible)

And you can't log into the built-in administrator account to try to fix the others? This is really starting to sound like you have a virus on your computer.

NavyLCDR said:

And you can't log into the built-in administrator account to try to fix the others? This is really starting to sound like you have a virus on your computer.

I don't think there are any accounts that need fixing.

NMI said:

I don't think there are any accounts that need fixing.

I agree with NMI, her/his reply naid the point: I have been confused by an update that created a number of side effects, including a "no permission to write" where I used to have access rights.

G.