Local Accounts Forgotten Passwords

I can guide you through sorting this out but will need to start by asking lots of questions to assess exactly what the situation is.

1 There are two reasons why the Administrator username is available. It is a normally-disabled built-in account.

Have you deliberately enabled it?
If not then Windows enabled it automatically because it detected a particular fault condition.

2 Which account are you logged into now?

To find out, right-click on the Start button, select Windows PowerShell [or Command prompt if that is what is shown] and enter
whoami
and you'll see a response in the form ComputerName\UserName

3 What is the account type [admin or standard] that you are logged in to now?

To find out, right-click on the Start button, select Windows PowerShell (Admin) [or Command prompt (Admin) if that is what is shown],
your screen will probably go dark, a dialog will appear, its title will be User account control.
Does the dialog show
3.1 A password entry box along with Yes, No buttons? - This means you are signed in to a standard user account.

You can now just click on the No button to cancel the dialog and return to your normal screen.

3.2 Just Yes, No buttons? - This means you are signed in to an Admin user account.

You can now just click on the No button to cancel the dialog and return to your normal screen.

3.3 A No button with no password entry box & any Yes button either greyed out or completely missing? - This means you are signed in to a defective Admin user account.

You can now just click on the No button to cancel the dialog and return to your normal screen.

3.4 No dialog at all, you just go straight onto PowerShell? - This probably means you are signed in to the Administrator username account.
You can now just click on the x in the top-right corner just as you would for many other windows.

If you let me know the results, I can explain what the problem is and how you can sort things out.

Denis

Computer fix it places have been using PC Unlocker or Hiren's Boot stuff to discover, eliminate, or reset passwords for customers bringing purchase proofs.

1 The Administrator results are as expected.

2.1 The Tony [user 2] results imply [but do not prove] that this is an MSAccount. Is that correct? If you are not sure then use the procedure in this tutorial to check
How to Tell if Local Account or Microsoft Account - TenForumsTutorials

2.2 For user 2, the computer has a full name [Tony Pattinson] and uses the short name Tony. So your main folders for this account are C:\Users\Tony\Documents, C:\Users\Tony\Music & so on.

3 [action] I'd like to find out the name the computer uses for the forgotten password account so I can refer to them all correctly [and avoid misunderstandings between us]. Just for this post, I'll call it Fred to save me writing or whatever it's called ten times in the post. Using either of your working accounts, right-click on the Start button, select Windows PowerShell [or Command prompt if that is what is shown] and enter
net user
then drag your cursor over them all to select them, press Ctrl-C to copy what you've selected and paste the results into any text file so you have a record of them. You will see Administrator and you'll see Tony. You should also see another username that rings a bell because it will be whatever short name the computer decided on for Fred [user 1]. There will also be some rubbish - here's mine as an example - the ones that matter are circled in green and the other rubbish is of no interest whatsoever.

You will see Administrator, you will see Tony. You'll also see the unknown Fred. If you are not sure then post the results for me to check.

4 [action] Because the dialogs I spoke about before did not appear, I know that a particular Windows protection setting is off [it's called UAC but we can worry about that later]. That lack of results stopped me getting what I needed from the results so I want to check if Tony & Fred are Admin accounts. In that window you opened earlier, enter
net user Tony
and then
Net user Fred
Here is one of mine

4.1 Do one or both of them have the Local Group Memberships item I have circled in green - the entry Administrators next to that tells me if they are Admin-level accounts. That is important info.
4.2 Make a note of the entry in blue. If you have a Full name entry there it probably means the account is [or once was] an MSAccount-linked user account. So for the Tony [user 2] account I already know you will see Tony Pattinson.

Tony - I'm taking this slowly so I have a firm foundation for what advice to give you to sort things out.
I do not want to confuse Tony [user 2] with what you referred to as Tony [user 1] {Fred}.


All the best,
Denis

Tony,

You would have to spend the whole week explaining what zoom is and then how to use it.

We can just take things step by step so it won't be a problem anyway. In your response, you can use my para numbers to help us avoid confusion.

Your net user results are good [useful]. They show that the user account names [Usernames] are: Administrator, Tony [user 2], Tony_2 [user 1]

1 I need to check which of the Tony's are Admin accounts

1.1 So open powershell again and enter

Code:

net user Tony

then look through the response to see if the line labelled Local Group Memberships contains the entry Administrators or not.

1.2 And then enter

Code:

net user Tony_2

then look through the response to see if the line labelled Local Group Memberships contains the entry Administrators or not.
[don't close the powershell window yet]

3 And I need to check if they are MSAccount-linked user accounts or local user accounts. In your initial post you said they were both local so if you are sure of that just say so but the check only takes a moment anyway.

In the powershell window, paste in this command

Code:

Get-LocalUser | Where-Object { $_.Enabled -match "True"} | Select-Object Name,PrincipalSource

and you'll get a response like this

then tell me what it says for Tony & Tony_2.

- - - - - - - - - -

I think that these results will be enough for me to guide you through everything you need to do in a safe way [so you don't lose any files].

All these questions make it look much harder than it really is by the way. I just want to be cautious.

All the best,
Denis

Tony,

You did

Code:

net user Tony

twice by accident. please also try

Code:

net user Tony_2

The good news is that Tony_2 is a local account so its password is easy to change [and both Administrator & Tony have the authority to do it].

Denis

Tony,

Please do one extra test for me.

Open file explorer, browse to
C:\Users
and tell me the names of the subfolders.
- One will be Administrator
- One will be Public but we have no interest in it
- One might be Tony and another Tony_2 but variations are possible.


Denis