Deleting an account on Windows XP

Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

Nap, interrupted.
Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Joined
Aug 3, 2001
Messages
19,141
I'm trying to configure my wife's new laptop, which runs Windows XP Professional. When I first booted, I had to specify a password for the Administrator account and I was forced to create one other account, which I named ToBeDeleted. It turns out to be an administrator account, too.

How can I delete it? I log into the Administrator account, where I see three accounts: Administrator, ToBeDeleted, and Guest. It will not allow me to delete ToBeDeleted, nor will it allow me to change it to a regular account.

~~ Paul
 
You can't delete the account if that is the one you are logged on with.
 
Not sure but you might try:

Start | Run
Type in "control userpasswords2" without the quotes.
 
Right-click "My Computer" and select Manage.
Click the + next to Local Users and Groups
Click the Users folder
Right-click the ToBeDeleted account in the right pane and select "Delete"

If it doesn't let you do this, what error is the computer giving?
 
Mummy said:
Not sure but you might try:

Start | Run
Type in "control userpasswords2" without the quotes.
Click to expand...
All right, I give up. Why does that work, but the regular user account manager does not?

Thanks!

~~ Paul
 
Genesius said:
Right-click "My Computer" and select Manage.
Click the + next to Local Users and Groups
Click the Users folder
Right-click the ToBeDeleted account in the right pane and select "Delete"

If it doesn't let you do this, what error is the computer giving?
Click to expand...
Oops, sorry, too late. The regular user manager was telling me that I was trying to delete the only administration account, which seemed bogus.

~~ Paul
 
Interesting. . .

I'll have to file Mummy's post in my bag o' tricks. Never seen it before, but there are times I have to blow up a user's account.
 
Right-click "My Computer" and select Manage.
Click the + next to Local Users and Groups
Click the Users folder
Right-click the ToBeDeleted account in the right pane and select "Delete"
Click to expand...

Yep. That should have worked.

You will need to switch users to delete the other account. You could even just rename the administrator account.

D2011
 
The regular user manager did not present me with a deletion option for the account, nor would it let me change it to a regular user account. It said that I was trying to change the only administration account, but that was not the case. I also had the Administrator account, which I was logged in under.

I wanted to end up with only the Administrator account, which is now the situation.

~~ Paul
 
Could it be a misguided attempt by MS to ensure security? As a rule it's a bad idea to run as Administrator, so perhaps they were thinking "if you delete ToBeDeleted the only account with Administrator privileges would be the Administrator Account which you're not supposed to use from day to day. Thus we shall not let you delete it".
 
Genesius said:
Interesting. . .

I'll have to file Mummy's post in my bag o' tricks. Never seen it before, but there are times I have to blow up a user's account.
Click to expand...

I still remember when I was a mainframe systems programmer, and DOS and PC's were the new big thing. They were much easier to use, didn't need the secret society of systems programmers to run them, would be the end of the IT Department, etc. "Just give em time" I thought.
 
richardm said:
Could it be a misguided attempt by MS to ensure security?
Click to expand...

It isn't about security, but about encouraging users to have their own named accounts and profiles. Ultimately MS would like all software to be roaming profile friendly. Vista takes it a step further by virutalising all writes by user software to non user directories.
 
Paul, was it the only account with a "standard" login, displayed at boot? Or the default account automatically logged in when you started Windows?

My vague recollection is that either of these conditions causes XP to prevent them being deleted. Solution: Create another low-power account you can log in to (a user account, say), then you should be able to delete the one you targetted.
 
Zep said:
Paul, was it the only account with a "standard" login, displayed at boot? Or the default account automatically logged in when you started Windows?
Click to expand...
It was automatically logged in because it didn't have a password. I pressed Ctrl+Alt+Delete and logged into the Administrator account. You'd think I would have been able to delete it then.

I was pleased to be presented with an entire paragraph explaining why I couldn't, not a word of which explained why I couldn't.

~~Paul
 
Paul C. Anagnostopoulos said:
It was automatically logged in because it didn't have a password. I pressed Ctrl+Alt+Delete and logged into the Administrator account. You'd think I would have been able to delete it then.

I was pleased to be presented with an entire paragraph explaining why I couldn't, not a word of which explained why I couldn't.

~~Paul
Click to expand...
I'm not sure exactly where this is organised, but my experience is that XP requires at least one account that has a login that gets presented to the user after XP boots. The Administrator account is not one of these selectable accounts normally (it does become selectable on Safe Boot). Where this is confusing is when XP automatically logs into a specific account on boot, i.e. the account selection screen is never shown. This is often the one-and-only selectable account.

This is an area I'm still trying to figure out the inside details of. Any Windows wizards care to chime in at this point?
 
Zep said:
I'm not sure exactly where this is organised, but my experience is that XP requires at least one account that has a login that gets presented to the user after XP boots. The Administrator account is not one of these selectable accounts normally (it does become selectable on Safe Boot). Where this is confusing is when XP automatically logs into a specific account on boot, i.e. the account selection screen is never shown. This is often the one-and-only selectable account.
Click to expand...
It requires one such account unless you use the "Change the way users log on or off" dialog and unselect "Use the Welcome Screen." Then you always get the login dialog.

~~ Paul
 
Zep,

The list of accounts shown on the welcome screen is controlled by the registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\SpecialAccounts\UserList

Accountname DWORD 0 to hide, Accountname DWORD 1 to force show. Administrator is hidden by default.

If there is only one account on the welcome screen and it has no password then login is automatic.

I'll have to check but I think if you push ctrl-alt-del twice at the welcome screen it drops back to the old style login. Its also possible to show the old style login based on a registry setting.
 
Janus said:
I'll have to check but I think if you push ctrl-alt-del twice at the welcome screen it drops back to the old style login. Its also possible to show the old style login based on a registry setting.
Click to expand...
Correct, and highly recommended.

~~ Paul
 
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