I now have no Admin a/c  

The only way I can cope now is by not reading back on anything I've been told, and telling you where I'm at.

I have followed the tutorial parrot-fashion (coming across a couple of the hiccups you predicted and working around them as you described, thank you!) but have not changed any a/c names or passwords yet. The 2 new IDs have set everything to Windows10 defaults.

Now, at the log-on screen I am presented with 3 options: the MS ID with my user logo, and the 2 new IDs. I am now logged in with MS ID and have no admin power, so I presume this is the account that has a problem - it may be because, some time before I set the nickname a/c to Standard, I removed what I thought was a "rogue spare" causing me to have to choose a log-on at boot-up, which was a nuisance which arose after I had reinstalled Win10.

It would be an enormous task to customise one of the new IDs to my existing setup. I use Start10 and Taskbar Tweaker and maybe some other utilities to make the system behave, and use very few of MS's default programs.

Preferably, I would not have to sign in at all.


I hope you can solve this fine mess I've got myself into

I tested the UAC "enter password of one of the admin a/cs" by updating a program which had been waiting since I lost admin power.

That worked for installing the update, but the program forgot that I'd purchased a licence and Edge became my default browser.

I haven't yet changed the admin accounts' names and passwords, now have to shut down ongoing tasks and do that, back later...

Try3 said:

Changing an account's name is complex. Changing its password is easy. Don't stay online until your new accounts have decent passwords.
Denis

I've done the passwords, but will have to reconcile to admins being NewAdminEtc for ever, I presume.

It's a royal pain not even being able to update a driver without signing in as another user.



Accessed netplwiz in an Admin ID, and now see the nickname ID. Even tho you consider a Standard a/c to be wiser, could I remake it an admin a/c? I'm not saying I will. This exercise and its consequences are taking a long time to recover from.

(Very blurry screenshot as I had to take the entire screen in the admin id.)



Then my whole taskbar froze in my usual setup, had to use Ctrl-Alt-Delete to reboot and lost work :'( It's just one thing after another !!!

(When I caused myself this problem I had not long recovered from horrendous problems with ultra-slow picture and video editor responses and malfunctions, unresponsive File Explorer and Task Manager, and lost icons on desktop and taskbar... was on the verge of reinstalling Win10 for a second time - but something nagged at me that it was a Win10 update that had caused it, and sure enough the next update fixed it like magic. But one constantly feels one is on shaky ground these days, it seems only yesterday that one of the big updates bugga'd up my network completely - oh please bring back Windows7 )

Personally, I would just upgrade the original account to an administrator again and be done with it. Simplest solution there is.

Try3 said:

Personally, it would remain at the bottom of my priorities list just below the odd jobs I was going to do in June 1989.

Try3 said:

Yes, I'm currently suffering from problems with File explorer search and have to keep rebuilding my index to cope. I could revert from Version 1909 to Version 1903 instead but I'll just wait & hope.

Are all your drivers up-to-date?
Are there any warning symbols or 'Unknown device' entries in Device manager's individal sections? [expand each one in turn to look]
Are there any entries in Device manager's 'Other devices' section? ['Other devices' is a euphemism for not having any suitable drivers so, in a perfect world, there is no 'Other devices' section at all]

Does this also happen in Safe mode?
Have you run SFC-DISM?

Denis

1909 must be for Insiders?
Yes, drivers were all up-to-date, no probs in Device Mgr, ran sfc /scannow but didn't know about DISM. No, the problems started with a Win10 update and (IIRC) were not fixed until 2 updates later. It was hell.

(You've reminded me of another utility, it gets rid of a lot of carp from File Explorer. I know one can edit the Registry rather than use utilities, but I would only do that in extremis and am careful to get trusted ones.)

You are so much nicer than Denis, NavyLCDR - he's trying to make a judicious Windows user out of me

I see that 1909 is an optional update waiting to be downloaded/installed. I've left it thus, having had enough digressions for today

Try3 said:

If, like many of us including me, you choose to make your day-to-day user account an Admin one despite MS's recommendations then do set your UAC to its maximum level [its default is one step down from the maximum].
Control panel, User accounts, Change UAC settings
Denis

Done !!!

Thank you!