Sorry for the length, but this is a bit of an odd problem for you guys.
Backstory: I just finished building a new computer. It's been in planning since about June, and I finally put it into action. I was a tech noob when I started, and I've learned alot since then, I'm definitely no professional though, just a guy armed with a search engine, a few manuals, and $500. When it actually ran and I heard the sweet, sweet victory of the cheap plastic fans whirring and the LED around the power button glowing, I wanted to run through my neighborhood screaming halleloujah or however its spelled. I encountered too many weird problems along the way, but... then I installed Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit from an external hard drive. That's when the real problems started. When Windows 7 "started up", I wanted to run through my neighborhood screaming colorful obscenities at Microsoft. Too many problems occurred trying to get Windows 7 to run properly, it took about 5 hours to get everything working, and when I could finally get to the desktop and go through the process of setting up all the files from the old computer, another 7 hours, and most of the files had mysteriously disappeared anyway (Most notably 30+ Steam games had suddenly disappeared) there was yet one more problem. Administrator privileges. I set my user to the administrator. Nothing happened. I then went through a mass Google search trying to fix this, and after about 8 solutions which did not work, there was one that messed up everything. This solution was a solution for a corrupt user profile, which I assumed was the case, since the previous 8 solutions did not work.
This solution told me to make a spare Admin account, then set my user account to a standard account with no admin privileges in the hopes of setting my account to admin level with the admin account. All worked fine for three seconds. Then I realized I locked myself out of pretty much everything. The admin account I created somehow doesn't exist. There are no user files in C:\Users, and I couldn't find anything in regedit. However, it still shows up as the administrator when I try to run programs, and the log in screen when I reboot the computer. Trying to find people who have had similar issues led to no avail. Trying to switch users to the admin account tells me the windows profile system failed the logon. Trying to use anything with admin privileges simply doesn't work, it asks for the admin password, I enter the correct password, and either nothing happens, the program closes, or I will get an error saying the program wasn't found. Safemode doesn't work either. Also, I can't even get in to safemode anymore, pressing F8 before the starting windows screen does nothing, MSconfig and CMD need admin permission, and there is no option on the boot menu or the BIOS to get in to safemode. Giving myself admin rights in regedit didn't work either, and the admin account also is not there. Is it possible to fix this without reinstalling windows? If I have to reinstall the operating system, I'm using Ubuntu. It's a completely unfamiliar system, I'd never even heard of it since a few months ago, never seen it used, I don't care. I'm not setting up windows 7 again.
The 8 solutions mentioned earlier:
1. Command prompt to enable/disable an account's admin rights
2. Using regedit, navigate to the users in HKEY_LOCAL > Software > Microsoft > Windows NT > Profilelist
3. Setting ownership of the C: drive
4. Using the User Accounts in the control panel
5. Setting the profile to Administrator in the BIOS (I don't know if this is a common feature, I've never heard of it before. The Motherboard is a Gigabyte z87 d3hp)
6. Using lots of random third party programs which I don't remember the names of to give myself admin rights and disable the default admin (which never existed)
7. Properties of the C: drive > Security > Edit and Advanced edit
8. Windows Troubleshoot (I was getting desperate)
The only thing I can think of left to do is contact Microsoft support, I'm not sure if they will be able to help me with this, however. I believe they are more prepared to handle common situations.
Thanks Windows 7. A real pal.
Backstory: I just finished building a new computer. It's been in planning since about June, and I finally put it into action. I was a tech noob when I started, and I've learned alot since then, I'm definitely no professional though, just a guy armed with a search engine, a few manuals, and $500. When it actually ran and I heard the sweet, sweet victory of the cheap plastic fans whirring and the LED around the power button glowing, I wanted to run through my neighborhood screaming halleloujah or however its spelled. I encountered too many weird problems along the way, but... then I installed Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit from an external hard drive. That's when the real problems started. When Windows 7 "started up", I wanted to run through my neighborhood screaming colorful obscenities at Microsoft. Too many problems occurred trying to get Windows 7 to run properly, it took about 5 hours to get everything working, and when I could finally get to the desktop and go through the process of setting up all the files from the old computer, another 7 hours, and most of the files had mysteriously disappeared anyway (Most notably 30+ Steam games had suddenly disappeared) there was yet one more problem. Administrator privileges. I set my user to the administrator. Nothing happened. I then went through a mass Google search trying to fix this, and after about 8 solutions which did not work, there was one that messed up everything. This solution was a solution for a corrupt user profile, which I assumed was the case, since the previous 8 solutions did not work.
This solution told me to make a spare Admin account, then set my user account to a standard account with no admin privileges in the hopes of setting my account to admin level with the admin account. All worked fine for three seconds. Then I realized I locked myself out of pretty much everything. The admin account I created somehow doesn't exist. There are no user files in C:\Users, and I couldn't find anything in regedit. However, it still shows up as the administrator when I try to run programs, and the log in screen when I reboot the computer. Trying to find people who have had similar issues led to no avail. Trying to switch users to the admin account tells me the windows profile system failed the logon. Trying to use anything with admin privileges simply doesn't work, it asks for the admin password, I enter the correct password, and either nothing happens, the program closes, or I will get an error saying the program wasn't found. Safemode doesn't work either. Also, I can't even get in to safemode anymore, pressing F8 before the starting windows screen does nothing, MSconfig and CMD need admin permission, and there is no option on the boot menu or the BIOS to get in to safemode. Giving myself admin rights in regedit didn't work either, and the admin account also is not there. Is it possible to fix this without reinstalling windows? If I have to reinstall the operating system, I'm using Ubuntu. It's a completely unfamiliar system, I'd never even heard of it since a few months ago, never seen it used, I don't care. I'm not setting up windows 7 again.
The 8 solutions mentioned earlier:
1. Command prompt to enable/disable an account's admin rights
2. Using regedit, navigate to the users in HKEY_LOCAL > Software > Microsoft > Windows NT > Profilelist
3. Setting ownership of the C: drive
4. Using the User Accounts in the control panel
5. Setting the profile to Administrator in the BIOS (I don't know if this is a common feature, I've never heard of it before. The Motherboard is a Gigabyte z87 d3hp)
6. Using lots of random third party programs which I don't remember the names of to give myself admin rights and disable the default admin (which never existed)
7. Properties of the C: drive > Security > Edit and Advanced edit
8. Windows Troubleshoot (I was getting desperate)
The only thing I can think of left to do is contact Microsoft support, I'm not sure if they will be able to help me with this, however. I believe they are more prepared to handle common situations.
Thanks Windows 7. A real pal.
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