Admin disabled = possible doom?

PC_Jammer · 10-23-2009, 02:42 PM

This thought only occured to me after an unrelated fubar that had me using the recovery console:

When you run the recovery console (say to recover from a screwed up Windows boot) it asks you to enter your administrator password. What happens, though, if you have the account disabled in Windows?

Like most people I try to avoid having to resort to the CD recovery console like the plague, but I wouldn't want to find my ability to use that tool was voided by something I'd done (disabling the admin account) to make it more secure.

Thoughts / comments?

XP Pro - btw.

Osiris · 10-23-2009, 02:44 PM

I'm not for sure on this, since it's just a recovery it "might" leave it as is

Lexluethar · 10-23-2009, 02:49 PM

Is a repair install an option? It may very well fix your issues.

turbogtstang · 10-23-2009, 03:18 PM

Are you sure its asking for THE admin account and not just any old admin account. I mean when you first setup XP it prompts you to create a user and that user is an admin.

surgeVel · 10-23-2009, 03:23 PM

If you don't create an admin password when prompted during installation, I believe you just leave the password blank when asked for the Administrator password.

Mak213 · 10-23-2009, 03:26 PM

Having the Admin account disabled does not prevent inserting the Password for actions that require Admin Rights.

Meaning that if you do have the account disabled and you need to insert the Admin password for Recovery or Repair, inserting the password will continue the process. This is just a integrity check to make sure you have the rights granted by the Admin, even with the account off, to take such action.

Surge is also correct that if no password is assigned during the install it is blank and you just hit Enter to continue.

PC_Jammer · 10-23-2009, 07:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mak213

Having the Admin account disabled does not prevent inserting the Password for actions that require Admin Rights.

Meaning that if you do have the account disabled and you need to insert the Admin password for Recovery or Repair, inserting the password will continue the process. This is just a integrity check to make sure you have the rights granted by the Admin, even with the account off, to take such action.

Wow, someone who actually bothered reading my post before posting.

Okay, so I should be able to disable the built-in administrator account and still have it be functional if I have to use the boot-disk recovery console. Cool. Wasn't something I wanted to test without asking first. Thanks.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mak213

Surge is also correct that if no password is assigned during the install it is blank and you just hit Enter to continue.

Yeah, I knew about this. I figured if there was no password on the built-in admin account that it would just take ENTER without a password, but I wasn't sure if it would even be able to authenticate if the account was disabled in Windows. Don't know why anyone wouldn't put a password on that thing, though.

Mak213 · 10-23-2009, 08:14 PM

Yes you should be able to do what you want. I say should because of the fact that there is always the unknown. I mean Vista operates the same way. UAC is designed around this whole theory. It was brought more to light with Vista and fine tuned even more with Win7, but XP had started it with the Power User Accounts which it created.

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