Win 10: can't create new user - user data base seems corrupted

Erwin316 · 29 May 2023

It seems I've managed to trash the user data base on a Win-10 machine as follows:

What has happened:
There was only one user account, which had admin permissions. I created a new account "admin" with admin persissions, removed the elevated permissions from the user account. Then I figured out that Windows has a built in "Administrator" account, which I enabled. To avoid the duplicate, I removed the "admin" account. Then I logged out from the user account (formerly with admin perms). On the graphical login screen, there is only this user account available. When logged in, the "Administrator" user is also not visible in the "login as a different user" tab.

What I've tried:
Reboot into command prompt (via Troubleshoot -> Advanced options). There, the Administrator account is working and the password is correctly set. However, "net users" reports the following accounts only:

Administrator, DefaultAccount, Guest, WDAGUtilityAccount

It also says the command completed with an error. And the actual user account "info" is not shown! (When the PC was freshly bought from the shop, the account was created with an email address, but not linked to a MS account. So sometimes it seems that info@domain.de is the full account name).

"net users Administrator" gives a sensible output, without errors.

Creating new users with the "net" command works partly: "net user Dummy1 /add" creates a new user, but it can't be added to the group "Users".

Changing the hostname (which was suggested somehwere) works as far as I remember. Also editing the registry via "wmic" is possible (to make the selection of user accounts appear on the login screen bottom left). However, after rebooting, everything is the same. Rebooting into the command prompt, all changes are gone.

What may also be interesting to note: "net localgroup" reports groups for "\\MININT-BCEB69D", so apparently factory-set hostname. When I call "net users" from the command prompt, it says "Accounts for " (no name) And the hostname (Gerätename) in the graphical session (System information) is reported in as "Videotechnik". In "D:\Users", I find the following user folders:

defaultuser1
defaultuser1.VIDEOTECHNIK
info <--- This is our regular user account.
Public

The Administrator account is missing. It seems as if there are two independent installations (the graphical one and the command prompt one).

So I'm kind of lost here. I'm not very experienced with Windows, am I doing something completely wrong? Maybe the troubleshooting command prompt is the wrong entry point?

Any helpful hints are greatly appreciated!

Regards,

Erwin

Dell Optiplex 3070 - Win 10 Pro 21H2 - German interface

Bree · 29 May 2023

Erwin316 said:

.... It seems as if there are two independent installations (the graphical one and the command prompt one).

Welcome to Ten Forums.

That is absolutely correct, there are two different operating systems. Your 'graphical' one is your installed Windows and boots from your C: drive. The Command prompt is the Windows recovery environment (WinRE) and has booted from your recovery partition. These are two quite independent operating systems.

Open Command Prompt at Boot in Windows 10

"net localgroup" reports groups for "\\MININT-BCEB69D"....

When booted into the WinRE recovery environment or the WinPE pre-installation environment (eg: booting from Windows install media) the computer name always starts with "MININT" (short for 'Minimum Windows NT') followed by a unique number. This confirms you are not booted into your installed Windows, and as you are not running the installed Windows, then you cannot see or change its user accounts. The only users you can see are those for the WinRE that is currently running.

It seems your installed Windows no longer has any administrator accounts apart from the built-in Administrator account. If Administrator is not appearing at the sign in screen you may be able to sign in as Administrator if you boot to Safe Mode.

Boot into Safe Mode on Windows 10

If not, then this tutorial by @Try3 may help you sort things out.

Fix UAC prompt has grayed out or missing Yes button in Windows 10

Try3 · 30 May 2023

Erwin316 said:

"net users Administrator" gives a sensible output, without errors.

Erwin,

I have studied your post very carefully.

If

Code:

Net User Administrator

reports that the account has indeed been enabled
"Account active Yes"
but, as you said, it does not appear on your normal login screen
then I think you must re-install Windows.
Clean Install - TenForumsTutorials and, in preparation for this, consider Backup and Restore Device Drivers - TenForumsTutorials

In your new installation, do not enable the Built-in Admin. Do create at least one spare, local, Admin, password-protected user account and write all user account passwords down somewhere secure yet accessible.
my ditty - Create two spare local, password-protected Admin accounts [post #2] in Windows 10, 11 - TenForums

All the best,
Denis

dalchina · 30 May 2023

To protect yourself from such things in future... as is endlessly recommended here.. and no once again..use 3rd party disk imaging regularly and routinely... then, even if you mess things up really badly - or your system disk fails (and you have to replace it) you can restore your image of all your O/S partitions and soon be back up and running as was.

Additionally use the scheduled creation of a System Restore point (Tutorial avaiable) to complement that.

Had you been using disk imaging, you could have restored an image of your Windows partition.