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
    2014-01-01T04:30:01+00:00

    My bad, Im a dad who fixed my daughters laptops as well as family and friends, so i do not know all there is to know, only what i have experienced & what has worked, personally i went back to win 7, too many hicups with 8/8.1 sometimes its best to wait till upgrade, give them time to fix issues, anymore they just pump stuff out without putting it through all the paces

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  2. Anonymous
    2014-01-01T04:10:27+00:00

    I feel your pain, had a simmler issue, Windows sent a update, next thing i know there was no admin. any more, I did the restart while holding down the shift key as i hit restart when it boots back up,click to troubleshoot, then on to advanced , next click icon startup options. Next click F-4 it should take you to a sighn on screen, click on profile for admin, hit enter insted of password, you then will be operating as a admin..in safe mode .after that you should be able to change all users remember to remove 1 admin profile and replace it with your info, best to change your screen name a little i.e. (ur name 321) after making the changes hit restart again and all should be well...Good luck....if you are really stuck after trying those steps, we can go thru it over skype or cell,......Ed

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  3. Anonymous
    2014-01-01T04:03:19+00:00

    That is not true.  I am running Windows 8.1 with 4 users, all 4 are admin.

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  4. Anonymous
    2014-01-01T03:07:26+00:00

    Then I should have gotten some sort of warning what would happen. How was I to know that a computer can only have 2 admins.  So, how do I get at least one admin with full access?  I tried a command prompt to make the hidden admin show up (which I didn't even know there was one), and I even tried creating another account (using the hidden admin), and didn't have the option to make it admin at all.  This is getting more confusing.  Tempted to just take the computer back and delete all microsoft accounts...maybe I should switch to a mac.  Oh! and that hidden admin, I can't delete the folders that come with a user...it has limitations.  Called the microsoft techs and they are clueless.  They actually suggested I go back to factory settings.

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