Re: User Account is GONE!

Seree,

Thanks for responding.

I was specifically interested in whether or not the issue might be related
to the updates. The last "bad update" I recall was KB908531, which caused
issues on several of the systems that I work with. I know it is a little
"early" to have such info, but the User Dissapearance issue seemed to have a
similar pattern.

Hopefully more responses will be forthcoming.

--Matt

"seree" wrote:

Hi Matthew, I have heard of people having problems after automatic updates
are put onto their systems. However, I am not one of them, thank goodness!
Overall the automatic updates is a vital tool in keeping systems safe. I know
with any type of process there will always be times when it does not run as
expected. However, I do have strong confidence in Microsoft as a company, and
those working for that company. I have been all over the web and seen how
much work Microsoft has done to enhance users experiance with the OS and with
the various applications such as Office. I also heard from one man who had
serious problems with his Windows Office Updates, and he finally had enough
and changed his office productivity suite to OpenOffice.org, which is a
freeware program and has quality programs which are compatable with Windows
Office formatts. I am not encouraging you to change, just answering your
question regarding others having simular problems.

As yet I have not received any response with an explanation of what may have
went wrong. I too did not do any messing around with the user accounts, and
my systems are all clean as a whistle without any virus or other malware
inside. I use Panda Security Suite, and I have great confidence with that
solution. Each person has to decide what s/he prefers. I am still scratching
my head over how my husbands Administrator Account was transfered into a
"debugger" account and got lost from the Welcome Screen. I just thank God I
have been educating myself in regards to the Windows OS, and so was able to
fix it after I freaked out. lol

My husbands expression was priceless when he came and told me his account
was "missing". I didn't believe him at first, as how could an account come
up missing? It had though and I just freaked at first. I thought for sure I
had some sort of horrid virus or trojan or somebody had remotely taken over
the system. But, that was not the case at all.

Now, the automatic updates may not be what caused this. It may be a
coincident that this event took place right after the update. I don't know,
but my problem did not occur around any event I can think of.

You have gotten the account back in order by now right? If not just whistle
and I will tell you what I did to get my husband's account back in order. Is
the computer showing her still logged on? My husband was still logged on so
that was a good indication the account was still existing, but I just needed
to figure out how to access it.

Sorry to go on, but I was really relieved I am not the only one this has
happened to. While I am sorry you have to go through all this stuff, it still
helps me feel a bit less alone here. I would really like one of these
professionals to chime in and give some indication of what could have occured
however. It is so odd that an account would suddenly just transfrom into a
different account and there not be any sort of malware on the system. I know
it is clean as I did several scans, one from the Windows Live safety scan, a
free online scan, and another from the online Panda scan which complements
any solution onboard. If you are worried about a virus or other malware try
these free scans:

http://www.pandasoftware.com and then just locate the scan from the main
page, and
http://safety.live.com/site/en-us/default.htm?s_cid=sah

Like I said, both are free, just be very carefull with the Live Safety Scan
if you use it to check the Registry. I used it and was unable to update my
office products until I did a Registry Merge with my Reg.bak file. The lady
who helped me fix the issue told me not to use that portion of the service
any longer, and I haven't.

Good luck and I hope you get your account back to normal right away,
--
Seree

Disclaimer: As I am not an expert or IT Professional, all my posts are
directed towards other newbies. I just want to learn and offer out whatever
assistance I can with what little I have learned so far. "The more I learn,
the more I learn I know very little indeed." ;-)


"Matthew Mailey" wrote:

The same thing just happened to a user in my office. Noboby "messed" with
the system but her logon dissappeared - like alwayzzlearning. The only thing
different were the Tuesday Updates.

Has anybody heard about similar errors recently or a bad update that went out?

"seree" wrote:

Hi, I am not a professional, just something simular occurred on my husbands
computer so I thought I would share what happened and how I fixed it.

His administrator account disappeared off the welcome screen. It was still
logged on, so I knew right away it still existed. I double
clicked--Ctrl+Alt+Del, and put in his user name and password in the logon box
which appeared.

As soon as I logged onto his account, I received an error message stating
this account did not have suitable permissions to run any program. I logged
off and then logged into my administrator account and opened userpasswords2.

Start-Run-control userpasswords2-ok or enter. The User Passwords dialog box
opens. In this box I clicked on his account and then clicked Properties.

In his account properties I clicked on the Group Membership Tab, and was
surprised to discover his account had somehow been changed from Administrator
to a "Debugger" account. I then reset his membership to Administrator,
clicked Ok, then clicked Ok again to exit the User Accounts dialog box.

I logged off my account, and his account was back on the Welcome screen, and
worked as it normally did.

I then did a full scan with our Security Suite and there was no sign of any
malware on the system. Everything has worked fine since this occurred.

To this day I do not know what happened, how his account was changed like
that. I posted here with a question regarding what had occurred as I was
extreamly curious what could have caused such an occurrance. However, nobody
replied, so I just figured either all were busy with unsolved problems and as
mine was "fixed" no need to discuss it. I still would like to know what
happened, as it appears it is happpening to others too. Well, I will follow
this string and see if I get some sort of clarification of this issue. Good
luck and I hope you get your issue resolved quickly.
--
Seree


"Blades" wrote:

Here's something to try (Pro only): At the welcome screen, press
Ctrl-Alt-Del twice to reach the "standard" logon box. From there, you
should be able to type in your account name.

Here's something to check: Open regedit, and navigate to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows
NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\SpecialAccounts\UserList. From there, check
to see if the missing account is listed in the right pane. If it is,
delete it and your account should be back on the welcome screen.

Ted Zieglar wrote:
I still think you should scan your computer for malware.

Before scanning for malware, create a new account with Computer
Administrator permissions. Choose a password for the account.

Now log out of whatever account you're in now and log in to the new
administrator account. As long as you can log into an account with
administrator permissions you can access everything on your computer.
---
Ted Zieglar
"Backup is a computer user's best friend."

alwayzzlearning wrote:
Yes - it looks like everything is there. I never renamed my account so
I am the administrator. I was the only one that ever used my computer
until a week ago, so I didn't think I needed to change it. So YES -
everything is there under that folder. Can I just put all of that
infomation under another name and have a new name or will I still
eventually need the administrator user account back? - I never knew
that when you loaded software and all - it didn't go to all the users
on the account. I am learning alot! What would you suggest I do. I
will backup immediately also! Thank you for your responses....




"Ted Zieglar" wrote:

If I were you I would backup all my data files (don't forget your OE
address book, messages and Favorites). If you don't find a solution
here you may need to wipe out your account and re-create it.

Do you see a folder with your user name in C:\Documents and Settings?

---
Ted Zieglar
"Backup is a computer user's best friend."

alwayzzlearning wrote:
Hi - I just went in and tried to add a new account with the same
name and it tells me I already have an account with that name. I
can't see it. It doesn't appear anywhere, but it does seem like all
the files are okay. Of course, I can't get to my email stuff or
anything. But my files are in the hard drive, even yesterdays. Any
thought on why It just wouldn't show it in any of the screens?
including startup

thanks alot



"Ted Zieglar" wrote:

I am not aware of any setting within XP that deletes a user account
without the user's knowledge or consent. If you're sure that your
account is really gone, someone with access to your computer -
including malware - is the culprit.

---
Ted Zieglar
"Backup is a computer user's best friend."

alwayzzlearning wrote:
Hi - shut down last night as if everything was okay. Today I have
no user account for me. My other account is there, but not mine. I
tried doing a recovery to 2 days ago, and mine is still not
there. It just vanished. Any thoughts? Also, even before the
recovery when I had to log in under the other account, there was
no past info in outlook express....no old files, none of the past
weeks emails...nothing. Just todays email for that account.

.

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