Logging in as administrator?

Basically, my computer automatically logs in as administrator every time I turn it on. It all started when I tried screwing around with the password for this account. I usually use an account other than administrator to log on. When I log out of the administrator account, my regular account is the only one that shows up on the Welcome screen... So, how can I fix this? I want my computer to automatically log in to my normal account. I also want the administrator account to not show up on the welcome screen. Basically, I want to be able to forget the administrator account exists.

 

Go to Start...Run...and type in "control userpasswords2" (without the quotes) and press Enter. Click on your account to highlight it, then uncheck the box that says something about users having to use a password. You many get a prompt for your password - just fill it in and click OK. On the next reboot it should automatically log into your account.

 

screwing around with control userpasswords2 is what got me into this mess in the first place... When I do what you say, nothing seems to change. Any other suggestions?

 

If you have Tweak UI installed you might be able to straighten it out using it. When you open Tweak UI, click on logon and see if "show administrator on welcome screen" is checked. If so, uncheck it. Then make sure the line that says "show username on welcome screen" is checked (username would be your username).

Then click the + next to logon and then click on autologon. In the right pane, if it isn't checked already, put a check in the box next to the line that says "logon automatically at system startup ". Type your username in the username box and then click apply.

 

!Nope!! Edited out! Changed my mind. This is to important as you stand to totally lock yourself out of the operating system. Will get back to this as soon as I can write out the proper instructions and cautions.

 

Hello again Sendell,
How are coming along on this? "Did you try" and if not, "please try" Zander's suggestion of tweakui for XP, first? It may help take some of the pain out of the Logon changes your trying to make. If this works you can ignore the following....

If you used usasma's suggestion did you make sure your name not Administrators name was hightlighted, before you applied? Possibly, use this method while in Safemode. Safemode may help to make this setting stick when normal mode is being fussy.

On the startbutton>All Programs menu is the options "logoff" and "Turnoff This Computer " on the bottom?

Have you opened up the "control panel" and clicked on the icon "user accounts" and checked out your options using this method? Many options will have popup descriptions and/or helpful links to "learn more" readme's.

And just out of curiosity how many user accounts are reflected in here? Are all On/Active or has some been marked as "Turned Off "?

As a side note, Adminstrator is showing up on the welcome screen because:
While using the userpasswords2 cpl., by design, the automatic logon will occur for the user you last made the changes for. Apparently, it was the "Adminstrator ". In theory, if you redo this and make sure you are highlighted rather than the administator, logoff and shutdown. On the next bootup, you should be on the welcome and autologged on. Risking information overload but another thing to keep in mind is, if you ever do change or reset a password for another user while logged in as anyone other than that user you risk this:

Please ignore the below linked article as a whole. I didin't include the link for anything other than the reference to the warning. AS explained and quoted from this:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/321305

Just thought I'd mention the above ^ so those that have encrypted files will not logon to a nasty surprise. NOTE* There maybe a workaround for this, since I'm assuming this is a "password change" problem and did not look into the issue further. If it applys, you may wish to.

Exactly how far and into what depth did you use the userpasswords2 cpl? In other words, how many and what options did you experiment with?

 

Thank you very much for taking the time and effort to help. Tweakui solved everything.

 

Ok, thanks for letting us know.