Need help re-setting accounts Win 8.1

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I’ve never had to set up separate accounts on a computer before. I tried to set up my husband’s new ASUS N56JN-MB71 using advice from Lincoln Specter’s Secrets columns, but I got something wrong. I now have three accounts, one named ADMIN (o.k. I know that is not what I should have done, but it happened). It truly is an administrative account. I have another administrative account with my husband’s name. Both of these do whatever the verbiage is about checking in on the Internet. I wanted my husband to have a local account, since we have a cellular modem and want to limit the online usage, and that has apparently set up fine, with yet another password. Of course I can’t do such as register the product or install a printer with this account.

My goal was to have two accounts, an administrative account that is not named ADMIN and a local account. What do I do now? I have David Pogue’s book, but that has not been the best place for me to start. I flipped back and forth through the over 700 pages when I was trying to do this at first, and he doesn’t seem to address in a step-by-step way how to take a computer that you get from the store with Win 8.1 on it and proceed.

Thanks for any advice. I went to the Windows store and they suggested I erase the computer and re-install Windows.

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By default the true Administrator account is hidden from the list of Users.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/create-user-account#create-user-account=windows-7
http://windows.about.com/od/windowsforbeginners/fl/Adding-and-Managing-User-Accounts-in-Windows-8-or-Windows-81.htm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7N42jqzHyCE
http://www.wikihow.com/Create-a-New-User-for-Windows-8

Before you wonder "Am I doing things right," ask "Am I doing the right things?"

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Thank you Berton, your links are an example of what confounds me. The first instructs me that my computer is part of a domain, a network, or a workgroup. I don’t think it is any of that. We do not have a home network.

I hope I find the other three links more comprehensible!

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I’m not clear exactly what you want. Local accounts can have standard user vs administrative privileges just as Microsoft Accounts do. I assume you have 3 accounts:
Your account with Administrative privileges and a Microsoft login
An Admin account with Administrative privileges and a Microsoft login
Your husband’s account with standard user privileges and a local login

You can easily delete the admin account by logging in to your account and go to
Control panel > User Accounts (or Windows key and type User Accounts)
Click on Manage Another Account
Click on Admin
Click on Delete the account

If you want to give your husband’s account administrative rights while keeping it a local account
Click on Manage Another Account
Click on your husband’s account
Click on change the account type
Click on the administrator radio button

If any of this is not what you want, let me know.

Jerry

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Jerry, I think I can follow this. See if you think this is the order in which to proceed. I can make the account with my husband’s name and a Microsoft login an administrative account. I can then delete the account named ADMIN. That will leave me with one admin account with my husband’s name and its own Microsoft login, and the non-admin local account with my husband’s name and its own login.

Will this make anything I did under the now-deleted account named ADMIN no longer accessible? I probably used that one to install Office and the printer. Fortunately I have not done too much so far. Life has been ‘way too full for me to focus on this without days away from it.

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I can make the account with my husband’s name and a Microsoft login an administrative account. I can then delete the account named ADMIN. That will leave me with one admin account with my husband’s name and its own Microsoft login, and the non-admin local account with my husband’s name and its own login.

If you created the user with the Microsoft account via the default Microsoft setup procedure, it probably is an administrator account. When you go to User Accounts > User name > Change account type, you can see the current setting. Set each remaining account as you prefer. You can have as many administrator accounts as you wish. Just make sure you have at least one administrator account before you delete the admin account

Will this make anything I did under the now-deleted account named ADMIN no longer accessible? I probably used that one to install Office and the printer. Fortunately I have not done too much so far. Life has been ‘way too full for me to focus on this without days away from it.

The only thing you should lose is any data files and settings (like desktop and IE favorites) unique to the Admin account itself. If you can access Office and the printer in the other accounts now, they should remain. You can also leave the admin account active if you like. It won’t hurt anything except for the disk space taken by the user data and control files. If you leave it, I would make sure it had a strong password with numbers as well as alpha characters.

As Berton mentioned above, you will also have a hidden account with a User Name of Administrator. It’s there for emergency recovery purposes and you don’t have to be concerned about it. At the risk of unnecessary complication, you can see a full list of accounts on your PC at
Control Panel > Administrative tools > Local Users and Groups > Users
In addition to the aforementioned Administrator account, you will also see a guest account that is disabled.
All this is probably too much information and I wouldn’t be concerned about these accounts.

Jerry

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O.K. Jerry, it all worked. The account I had named “ADMIN” was a local account. Don’t know why it had let me install the printer, but it did. I made sure I had one Admin Microsoft account, then made the local account an Admin account, then deleted the account named “Admin.” I did see the disabled guest account, and will probably set up an account for my grandnieces. I see I can make one for them with child protection. For the most part they are entranced by their iPads, which I guess is o.k. with me.

Thank you for getting me out of my jam.

Berton, your youtube links led me to some newer ones about using Windows 8.1 (the more recent version) and these have been very helpful.

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O.K. Jerry, it all worked. The account I had named “ADMIN” was a local account. Don’t know why it had let me install the printer, but it did. I made sure I had one Admin Microsoft account, then made the local account an Admin account, then deleted the account named “Admin.” I did see the disabled guest account, and will probably set up an account for my grandnieces. I see I can make one for them with child protection. For the most part they are entranced by their iPads, which I guess is o.k. with me.

Thank you for getting me out of my jam.

Berton, your youtube links led me to some newer ones about using Windows 8.1 (the more recent version) and these have been very helpful.

Now that you’ve gone through all the effort to delete that account let me say that I always have a spare account which is an administrative account. I write down the password and store it safely. I only use it if all the other accounts are inaccessible. Thus it is unlikely to become corrupted by anything which I’ve done that is account specific.

Joe

--Joe

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Glad to help.

Before you wonder "Am I doing things right," ask "Am I doing the right things?"

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Glad to hear you were able to set up every thing as you wanted. You are now a certified Windows 8 Account-tant! :rolleyes:

Jerry

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That sounds like a good idea Joe, a question if I may. Would it be a good idea to log in to that spare admin account at least once to give a working windows a chance to fully set it up???

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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