Cannot change account to administrator!

Anonymous
2012-11-03T17:01:26+00:00

Hi. I need to change my account to administrator so I can make changes to my internet accounts but my internet provider told me that I am just a standard user in Windows 8 and I need to change it to administrator. When I try to change my user profile from standard to administrator, Windows 8 won't let me, even though I am logged in under my Microsoft account. How can I change this? It's pretty frustrating!!

Windows for home | Windows 11 | Accounts, profiles, and login

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Anonymous
2012-11-03T22:53:02+00:00

Hi. I need to change my account to administrator so I can make changes to my internet accounts but my internet provider told me that I am just a standard user in Windows 8 and I need to change it to administrator. When I try to change my user profile from standard to administrator, Windows 8 won't let me, even though I am logged in under my Microsoft account. How can I change this? It's pretty frustrating!!

Hi

You cannot use a Standard (Local) account to change the account to Administrator. You can only use an existing Administrator account to do this.

Open Control Panel (Move the cursor to the lower/left corner of the screen and Right Click, select Control Panel on the menu.

In Control Panel, select User Accounts.

Select Manage another account.

This will show all of the user accounts on the computer. If there is an Administrator account it will show that designation.

Sign Out and log on with any Administrator Account.

Go back to Control Panel/User Accounts.

Select Manage another account and then select the Standard account you wish to change.

Select the Change Account Type option.

Select the Administrator option to change the account and click the Change Account Type button.

If there are no other Administrator Accounts, let us know and we can try another recovery method.

Let us know what you find.

Regards

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  1. Anonymous
    2013-12-16T04:37:56+00:00

    Update to this problem: after months of frustration with windows 8, some issues being that my router and wireless printers were not compatible with windows 8 (though they were less than 2 years old), I decided to install windows 7 instead. I am much much happier! Everything works together now and I can find all of my programs and data.

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  2. Anonymous
    2013-12-15T21:55:08+00:00

    I only have one account and its not an admin

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  3. Anonymous
    2013-10-13T23:24:39+00:00

    The trick to boot up in safe mode to access the local administrator account didn't work for me. I had to run CMD as administrator and use: net user Administrator /active:yes

    This allowed me to logon as the local Administrator but:

    Even when I'm signed in with the local administrator account I can't change a user from Standard to Administrator. The option is always grayed out. 

    This is infuriating. Why won't Win 8 let me have an administrator account?!

    Hi worrom

    Sorry, but your description does not make sense?

    You said:

    I had to run CMD as administrator and use: net user Administrator /active:yes

    If you ran this command as an Administrator, then you must already be using an Administrator account?

    This would also be why the Safe Mode trick did not work. The Built-in Administrator account will only be available in Safe Mode if there are no other Administrator Accounts on the system.

    Regards

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  4. Anonymous
    2013-10-12T18:09:26+00:00

    The trick to boot up in safe mode to access the local administrator account didn't work for me. I had to run CMD as administrator and use: net user Administrator /active:yes

    This allowed me to logon as the local Administrator but:

    Even when I'm signed in with the local administrator account I can't change a user from Standard to Administrator. The option is always grayed out. 

    This is infuriating. Why won't Win 8 let me have an administrator account?!

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments