Well it looks like MS shot themselves in the foot again. Over night my system has changed so that my personal account is no longer an administrator even though it is still listed as one in Computer Management. In User Accounts it is set as a standard user and it cannot be changed to an administrator user. Why does MS keep screwing up Windows 7??? It is a great operating system other than the stupid things that they have done, like not being able to copy a configured user account to the default user and now this!!! My assumption is that they do not want corporate users anymore, they just want brain dead faux McIntosh home users! What they are going to do is force everyone to run as "The Administrator" instead of creating other user accounts, why did they drop the "Power User"? That was a very useful account, I know it's still there but it isn't the same! Mr. Ballmer, please retire and let someone with some brains take over this company before you totally screw it up!Ted McCarty

Hi Ted, Before moving on, I would like to know that how did this occur. Also, are there any other administrator accounts? If so, you may log in and use the other administrator account to add your current account into Administrators. Change a user's account type If there is no other administrator account, you may boot in safe mode. When the login screen appears, you should see the Built-in Administrator account. You can login using this account (it has no password, by default) and use it to change your normal account back to Administrator. If there are any error encountered, please let me know the detailed symptom. Regards, Sabrina TechNet Subscriber Support in forum. If you have any feedback on our support, please contact tngfb@microsoft.com This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties or guarantees, and confers no rights. |Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

Hi Sabrina, this happened just the other day. I have both the standard Administrator account set up and my account was set as administrator. In Control Panel, Users and Groups I am in the Administrator group (I always remove the User group when I set an account as administrator, does "Most restrictive still apply?). In Control Panel, User Accounts it shows me as administrator but then when I open the account it is set to "Standard User". When I try to set it to Administrator the box goes from black to gray. I have a full backup of my drive before this happened and I am going to restore that tonight. I will let you know if it does it again. Please let me know if you find anything on this as I am setting up two new Dell laptops up for my granddaughters and I will need to know how to fix this if it happens to them. Ted McCarty

Hi Ted, I cannot reproduce this issue in my test machine. You may restore the computer to the point that the issue did not occur to check if it persists. Also, please check if there is any programs or updates installed before the issue occurred. Regards, Sabrina TechNet Subscriber Support in forum. If you have any feedback on our support, please contact tngfb@microsoft.com This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties or guarantees, and confers no rights. |Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

Hi Ted, Does the issue persist after performing the system restore? If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to let me know. I am happy to be of further assistance. :) Regards, Sabrina TechNet Subscriber Support in forum. If you have any feedback on our support, please contact tngfb@microsoft.comThis posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties or guarantees, and confers no rights. |Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

Good Morning Sabrina, I did the restore last weekend and my system was again normal BUT it soon reverted back to the state where I could not change a standard user to and administrator. Now my granddaughter's new Dell laptop with Windows 7 Home Premium is set the same way. I am a loss as to why Microsoft would want to do anything this ignorant! You should always have at least one backup administrator on a system. They need to stop locking down Windows; they are just going to reinforce the refusal of companies to upgrade from XP to Windows 7. When did they stop thinking of their business customers? Don't they realize that probably half of those Windows 7 licensed PC that have been sold over the last two years are now running Volume licenses of XP? I can tell you for a fact that when I was working setting up new computers for the state department of corrections that every new PC, at least 2000, went from Windows 7 back to XP! I now work for a multi-national company and it is the same here. Every PC that they buy comes in with a Windows 7 license on it and goes to the user with XP Volume license OS on it. Ted McCarty

Hi Ted, According to your description, I would like to say that if it is grayed out when you trying to change the account as administrator, it states that you are already the administrator. If you boot to Safe Mode, are you able to log in as Administrator? If so, go into User Accounts in the Control Panel and change your personal account back to the Administrator type. Regards, Sabrina TechNet Subscriber Support in forum. If you have any feedback on our support, please contact tngfb@microsoft.com This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties or guarantees, and confers no rights. |Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

Hi, for a second (or third) opinion about the accounts + groups on your Windows PCs you could open a CMD window and try: net user (that should list all accounts including inactive accounts) net localgroup (that gives the name of the administrators group among others) net localgroup administrators (if that's the name on your box: all user accounts with admin rights) This is as it was in the last ten years (at least), and if something odd happens on your side check your systems for malware. Sabrina wrote that there might be an active administrator account with no password, IMO that would be very wrong, all active accounts and especially admin accounts should have a password.