New
#1
microsoft account, lost password, locked PC, etc. etc. etc.
I have Windows 7 so had no idea how screwed up this could get. I've googled this for 3 hours and the simplest of answers will never be provided. No one seems to be able to think thoroughly on this.
My 90 yr old dad has a hosed PC. It now has his login screen associated with an email address. He can't remember the password and trying to reset it with live.com also doesn't work.
Here's what we have:
email-address-user (Microsoft account) with admin privileges
locked out
If one resets email-address-user's password via live.com, does THIS AFFECT POP3 access? Meaning, is this password reset only for logging into one's PC or is this reset password synched with the actual email server one uses to download their emails? This WOULD be a very valuable piece of information but no website deems it useful. My reason for asking is I don't want to reset his password and then have it such that he can't read his emails. And I'm not about to try to communicate over the phone what he would need to do to update his client email (or internet access) password.
To get to the desktop, I tried a ton of things but the only thing that worked was net user administrator /active:yes.
What I would like to do is "revert" the email-address-user from a Microsoft account to a local account. I'm 100% game to edit the registry 100 ways to Sunday. I've poked around googling and no one will provide the simple registry layout for a Microsoft account and a user account. It seems if I try to use netplwiz to allow automatic login, it STILL won't work. Also, if I try this I new get TWO accounts shown in the lower left of the login screen.
I don't think it's safe to DELETE email-address-user as it will take C:\USERS\email-address-user with it.
If I try to do anything with my newly created administrator account like open Internet Explorer, it says that the built-in admin account can't use that app.
I can access the C:\USERS\email-address-user documents and pictures from the admin account ONLY. My newly created "Jim" account that HAS admin rights, can NOT access the aforementioned USERS\ folder (I can browse the directory but can't view jpgs, etc.).
Ultimately, I'd like to have email-address-user be a local user with NO password.
Last edited by JimLewandowski; 27 Nov 2016 at 22:42.