My friend had her computer repaired by an ex-friend. She has Windows XP. Now she can no longer access her Task Manager as it’s been "disabled by the administrator. She thinks the ex also named the “administrator” something stupid to mess with her. It isn’t “the computer” she named but either the administrator or the user. When she goes to shut down her computer at night, she gets an error message that is titled cApp, and she has to click End Now to shut it down.
To start, if she right-clicks on “My Computer” and selects “Manage,” she should be able to see the “Local Users and Groups” folder. In there will be a group named Administrators and she can see what the Administrator account is named. She may or may not be able to change the password for the Administrator account by going in to the Users folder, highlighting the Administrator account, and going to the Action menu.
I would guess that the ex-friend has also changed the administrator’s password. There are utilities out there to reset a Windows password. I have used the one at http://home.eunet.no/pnordahl/ntpasswd/ before. It is aimed more at techies and sysadmins though.
I’m concerned about that error message. Is it “ccApp” or “cApp”? “ccApp” (two c’s) is Norton Antivirus. “cApp” (one c) is usually a Trojan horse: Risk Detected
The ex apparently didn’t change the password. How could it have been changed as my friend is able to get in & out of the computer. This doesn’t make sense to us. Could you explain please? Also, there is no “Local Users and Groups” folder under Manage. (I’m also checking this on my own computer & can’t find one either.) You do realize we are running XP, right?
Well, we’re not sure now because after doing it consistently dozen of times when she shut down, now when she shuts down to check it out, it’s not doing it. Hmmmm!
There is a difference between the “Administrator” account, which does not show up under the “User Accounts” control panel, and users with administrative privileges. It is standard behavior that the user logs on with a separate account that generally ends up with a name based on the user’s name. This account has administrative privileges by default. The “Administrator” account is usually not used. It is possible that the password to the “Administrator” account has been changed. This does not have any relation to the account your friend usually uses, which looks to have had its privileges downgraded.
The steps given are for XP. You may have to expand the System Tools entry. Then expand the “Local Users and Groups” entry. The Administrators group will show all admin users. In a default install with one user, there will be an entry for “Administrator” and an entry with the user name entered during setup. Note that it is possible to be an administrative user but have certain privileges restricted through Group Policy.
Did you get the user account issues straightened out? You will not be able to fully remove Norton without admin access.
Anyway, Norton is hard to get rid of. First, use the Norton Removal Tool.
Then, you can use the steps detailed here to finish the job.
I’m sorry that this isn’t making sense to us, Cleophus. We are totally lost on technical stuff unless it is spelled out step-by step.
When she clicks under System Properties, under Computer Name, it says Erins, which is her name. Also when she checks the Computer Administrator, it also has the name she chose. She also thinks it very unlikely that her friend actually changed her password.
However in the past, when she went to Task Mgr, she would see files with her name mispelled as “eran”. Now, it may seem silly to obsess about this but when she sees that her computer was somehow tampered with the disrespectful mispelling of her name, it really bothers her, especially as she is helpless to fix it.
We have tried the Windows XP help/support center and it gives us these instructions-
To set the DisableTaskMgr registry entry value to 0 for all users, follow these steps:1. Log off from the computer.
2. Log on to the computer by using a user account that has administrative permissions.
3. Click Start, click Run, type regedit in the Open box, and then click OK.
4. In the left pane, click the following registry subkey:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System
5. In the right pane, double-click DisableTaskMgr.
6. In the Value data box, type 0, and then click OK.
7. On the File menu, click Exit.
8. Restart the computer.
However, on both her computer & mine, in the right pane, there is no DisableTaskMgr option.
This is pretty perplexing for both of us. Does anyone know another way around this? I will send her the XP registry patch to see if that helps. Thanks, drachillix.
Update to this- the Patch did work, thank you very much! Now there is another issue raised-
Squiggy (the name she picked) comes up under Computer Name under the Systems thing.
BUT the name Eran (which her friend put in) comes up under Computer Name on the Warning Text of her game.
Also, when she does End Processes (Cntl+Alt+Del), these are listed under User Name Eran-
Task Manager
Morrowind
Explorer.exe
rundll32.exe
and so on.
How can she restore everything to the name she wants?
When you go under Task Manager, what processes can you close safely while playing a game so that it will run most efficiently? Is there any way a layperson can know what the extra processes are and disable their programs? Should they?
If she knows the computer has been messed with by someone she doesn’t trust then she really should re-format and re-install Windows. Who knows what crap is there to annoy/spy on her.