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Installing a printer on XP without administrator rights

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Hi, I have a question and I hope you can help me out…

My mate who works in York is trying to install a printer on his work PC which is running XP. But every time he tries he gets a message telling him he does not have the rights go seek the administrator (or some such phrase)..He called me and asked for my advice..I laughed and said are you logged on as the administrator or at least logged on with administrator rights..To cut a long story short…I directed him into user accounts where I was quite surprised when he said there is no administrator user set up, just his account. The user is set up with min rights…The computer is a hand me down from a different office and the old owner has been posted..
So my question is how does he sort this out?

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Clarifications

In reply to Installing a printer on XP without administrator rights

Clarifications

Login as the local

In reply to Installing a printer on XP without administrator rights

Login as the local admin and give his account the admin rights it needs.

Is this XP Home or Pro?

Might have to boot to safe mode

In reply to Login as the local

to get to the admin account.

as long as their isn’t a password on the admin account, he can just change his account to being an administrator.

If that doesn’t work, what does the in-house tech support have to say? They actually should be the first to talk to.

Might have to boot to safe mode

In reply to Might have to boot to safe mode

I suggested safe mode to him, and he got back to me and said nothing changed…When he goes to the user accounts, there is only his there, there is no adminastrator account..But he can not create an adminastrator account..

As for the in house ….in our job you kinda sort your self out..hence him calling me….

If its XP Pro

In reply to Login as the local

then the local admin HAS to be there, but may have been renamed or hidden or both ]:) But it can not be deleted.
If the local user does not have permissions to SEE the hidden admin, he will need to contact tech support for his office or use something like a Winternals boot cd.

If its XP Pro

In reply to If its XP Pro

I will ask if it is home or pro..But I get the impression he us pretty screwed!!….I suggested running spam/spy ware….and then going into the reg and changing the keys related to the printer but that his way out of his depth..and there is no way I am driving all the way up there to it for him…

Thank you all for your time and your suggestions….

Login as the local admin and give his account the admin rights it needs.???

In reply to Login as the local

Could you please explain how you would do that. I do not remember a “local” from I used to have xp…
Thank you for your time so far

This may help

In reply to Installing a printer on XP without administrator rights

The built in Administrator Account doesn’t show in User Accounts.

If its XP Pro at the Welcome screen press Ctrl+Alt+Del twice
If there is a logon box for the Username type in Administrator and click Ok, if it is password protected you are in strife.

If it is XP Home the only way to access the Administrator Account is through Safe Mode.
At the Welcome screen press Ctrl+Alt+Del twice
If there is a logon box for the Username type in Administrator and click Ok, if it is password protected you are in strife.

If he is successful and can logon he can then change his Account to an Administrative level and install the printer.

The other side of the story is that the Local Administrator Account may have been disabled if the PC was originally on a Domain.

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