Solved How to Remove Excess Admin Accounts

I was trying to avoid typing in my Pin number for my regular User account every time I had been away from my computer (or it went to sleep).

Somehow, I now have an Admin account that's broken, my User account, and another Admin account that I'm afraid to touch.

I'd like to remove the two Admin accounts, and leave my User Account intact.

Any help will be appreciated.

Note that you need at least one account that is Administrator on your PC. (belongs to Administrators group)

To display all accounts
To remove an account

I use a slightly different method. I like to remove unwanted accounts via storage settings. The reason that I do this is that it specifically notes that it deletes not only the user account, but the data for that account. It may well be that other methods do this as well, but I am not certain if they do or not so I simply use this to be sure.

@hsehestedt
I'm not sure if this will also remove registry entries for the user account?

It's safer to remove an account from settings app -> Accounts -> other users and choose "Delete user data" option.
This needs to be done from Administrator account

OK, I have three options on removing the extraneous Admin account.

I had to change back to the affected (infected?) computer and I'm now there.

Going in to see what's what, then ask questions from there. I'm pretty sure I'll have some!

Thanks to all of you for helping me out of this mess.

I'm ba-a-ck!

I powered down, then rebooted. I want y'all to understand what I see:

The first thing I saw was Administrator
User name or password is incorrect. Try again.
OK

I clicked on OK and the rest of my sign in page appeared:

UserName with pic I've had forever.
Administrator with pic I've had forever
Administrator - this one had no pic (gray person icon) and was highlighted (as the one I tried to boot with?)

I am assuming the gray one is the one I want to delete.

So, I go into System>Storage> and I see this:



Then I click on Other and get this:



So, I go back and click on Other People and get to Manage People, but it only shows me an option to add people, not to remove them!

I rarely have used the "good" Admin account, and am not averse to eliminating it and starting over. There's not very much more stuff on the "good" than on the broken one.

If it says username or password incorrect immediately after boot, do you have it set to auto login? If so, open netplwiz and check the box to require users to type passwords, reboot and that should be gone. Then you can uncheck that box again. I’ve seen a glitch like this before after updates

Wynona said:

So, I go back and click on Other People and get to Manage People, but it only shows me an option to add people, not to remove them!

Click to expand...

You need to be logged into Administrator account which you want to keep, from screenshot below click on "Change account type" and make sure it's set to Administrator, if it's not you can't delete accounts from it.

Wynona said:

I am assuming the gray one is the one I want to delete.

Click to expand...

You need to be sure which account you whish to delete because all of it's data will be removed if you choose this option during account removal.

Then in settings app -> accounts -> other users click on account you whish to remove to expand the menu and there should appear a button "Remove"
See screenshot:

Wynona said:

I was trying to avoid typing in my Pin number for my regular User account every time I had been away from my computer (or it went to sleep).

Click to expand...

dacrone said:

If it says username or password incorrect immediately after boot, do you have it set to auto login? If so, open netplwiz and check the box to require users to type passwords, reboot and that should be gone. Then you can uncheck that box again. I’ve seen a glitch like this before after updates

Click to expand...

Dacrone is correct, a duplicate name on the sign in screen with a grey user icon is almost always down to netplwiz not being set up correctly for auto login, I usually just remove auto login to make it go away.

As for avoiding a password or pin every time the PC resumes from sleep, set Accounts > Sign-in options > Additional settings to 'Never'.

Bree said:

Dacrone is correct, a duplicate name on the sign in screen with a grey user icon is almost always down to netplwiz not being set up correctly for auto login, I usually just remove auto login to make it go away.

As for avoiding a password or pin every time the PC resumes from sleep, set Accounts > Sign-in options > Additional settings to 'Never'.

View attachment 81884

Click to expand...

@Bree

I checked and that's on. Sigh . . . What's really weird is that things seem to be different between my machine and others' machines.

OMGoodness! I followed what @dacrone said, finially found what I was supposed to click on, and rebooted! Now it bypasses the sign-in requirements!

Now, the only thing I have to do is my regular sign-in. For whatever reason, when I tried to do this for my standard sign-in, it did it for Admin!

I don't know if I'm brave enough to tackle this thing again!

Well, I think I now know what went wrong . . . The tutorial I was using is for local accounts!

Enable or Disable Password Sign-in Option for Local Accounts in Windows 11​

So far, I haven't found one for Microsoft accounts.

Same for Microsoft accounts. Only caveat is you have to set a pin, then do those netplwiz steps. But, When unchecking the box you’ll type your password when promoted, not the pin.

Wynona said:

@Bree

I checked and that's on. Sigh . . . What's really weird is that things seem to be different between my machine and others' machines.

Click to expand...

The Settings app is adaptive, what options it offers you depend on what type of account you are using, amongst other things.

If you have a local account with no password, as I do, then that sign-in option will not be shown in Additional settings. I had to set a password to be able to change it. Once I removed the password again the option disappeared, but my choice of setting remained in place.

dacrone said:

Same for Microsoft accounts. Only caveat is you have to set a pin, then do those netplwiz steps. But, When unchecking the box you’ll type your password when promoted, not the pin.

Click to expand...

Thanks, @dacrone. The Microsoft account I want to work with is my regular/standard account. I already have a password and a Pin.

I've never worked with netplwiz before and I'm kinda flying blind, to say the least.

Now that my Admin account opens without requiring a Pin or password, how to I change from Admin to Standard account?

Did you create that account or is it and hidden Administrator?

dacrone said:

Did you create that account or is it and hidden Administrator?

Click to expand...

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! I just did the netplwiz on my regular account and now it opens without a password or pin being required. And . . . my regular account pushed the Admin account into the background so it couldn't start first!

Wowwww! All of you guys who responded to my mess, I want to say that I appreciate every one of you!

@zebal, @TairikuOkami, @hsehestedt, @dacrone, @Bree

Each one of you added to my knowledge and I will be forever thankful!

I now have a computer that does what I want it to do!

And what's so great is that I didn't have to delete a broken Admin account . . . it wasn't broken in the first place! And, I learned something new today.