Hi, I'm running XP Home SP2. I have always been using a user account with administrator rights. Having heard that it is not safe, I thought I would change my account type to power user. 1. I ran "control userpasswords2" and, just in case, tried to change the account I was logged in with; which naturally did not work. 2. Then, in the same window, I defined a password for the main (default) Administrator account, which I had never used. 3. I rebooted in Safe Mode and logged in using the default Administrator account. 4. Went to Control Panel > User accounts, and the admin account I use everyday was not there. Only admin, and guest. 5. Then I rebooted in normal mode and logged in using my usual login... which is now a guest account! Meaning I don't have write access to the C:\ root, for instance... I can't even display the calendar as I don't have the rights to change the system date & time! How can I sort this out? I've done my Google research but did not find any relevant solution. I'd be very grateful for any advice. Thanks

Logon as administrator and correct via the gui USER Accounts under control panel. I would suggest some care in what you play with. Great way to lock yourself out of the system and your data. Imagine the power if you knew how to internet search

Thanks for the insight, but as stated in point 5 of my original message, my usual account was NOT displayed in the User Accounts panel when logged in as admin, so there was nothing I could correct. Thank you also for the warning, but so long as you can log in as admin I shouldn't think there is much risk of 'locking' yourself out of anything... Anyway, the solution was given to me on another forum: Safe Mode, log in as default admin, run the command prompt and enter the following command: net localgroup administrators /add accountname Which did the trick!

sorry, should, read "point 4 of my original message"