# Help! WinXP screw up **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 19, 2005, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-winxp-screw-up/285622 "2005-01-19T22:28:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![robinc308](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b782af/32.png) [@robinc308](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robinc308)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2005, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-winxp-screw-up/285622/1 "2005-01-19T22:28:35Z")
I have done something to screw up my XP installation - not good… Anyway, what I did was this: 1. Create a new “limited user” account for my housemate 2. Decide that I would like to enforce some security things, and go into control panel and start poking around. I couldn’t find what I wanted under “user accounts” so I look under “Administrative Tools”. There I find joy. Local Security Policy. THis is where I think I went wrong. 3. I start playing with some settings under local security policy - basically tweaking anything that looks like what I want (which was to a) enforce complex passwords, b) require password rotation and c) require ctrl-alt-del to logon. I thought I’d done everything I needed to. 4. At this time, using my norton security centre, I download the latest updates, which included some kind of security update (not virus defs). This requires a reboot which I do. 5. I can’t login as my username. Oh dear. It says the administrator has disabled it. Only problem is that I’m the administrator. Now, when I built this PC I used the option to rename the “Administrator” account something else (on the basis that is would be more secure), so this PC doesn’t have an Administrator account, but at a loss, I try logging in as Administrator. It works! 6. I go into “User Accounts” and my account and my housemates account are not listed. I use explorer to browse to c:\documents and settings\myusername - and I get a permission denied (I’m supposed to be administrator - how can it deny me?). I try to recreate my username, but it fails on the basis that the username already exists (in which case, why won’t it let me log in as me?). I try to go back and undo the changes I made in step 3. But I’m not sure I can remember them all. It doesn’t fix the problem. 7. It’s after midnight, so I give up and go to bed. So, Windows literate dopers - what next? Is this recoverable? I’m considering trying a reinstall of XP over the top and hoping like mad that my data stays in tact (and I can get to it afterwards) - I know, I should have backed up, but I didn’t get around to it, but that’s a pain, and my dad has the disks, so I’d have to go home to get them etc etc. What else can I try? ---
**Author:** ![kinoons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/a698b9/32.png) [@kinoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kinoons)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2005, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-winxp-screw-up/285622/2 "2005-01-19T23:13:51Z")
it sounds like you can get into windows…so once you do go to start --\> run. Type in restore. you’ll get a list of files, double click rstrui. you’ll get a GUI on restoring the system to an earlier time, (before you made the changes) follow directions and you’ll hopefully be fine ---
**Author:** ![nivlac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/3bc359/32.png) [@nivlac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nivlac)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2005, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-winxp-screw-up/285622/3 "2005-01-19T23:15:09Z")
You might find your answer [here](http://www.experts-exchange.com/Operating_Systems/WinXP/). It is not an unusual problem.