windows recovery environment

Enable the Built-in Administrator in Windows 10/11 via Windows RE

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There are situations where you’ll need to activate and use the built-in Administrator account in Windows. The built-in Administrator account is disabled by default. If your existing admin user account profile gets corrupted (and you have no alternate user account with admin privileges), you’ll need to enable and use the built-in administrator account to fix things up or create a second administrator account.

This post applies only to the situations where the user remembers the password for his account, but cannot log into the account due to a corrupt user profile or per-user registry. Corrupt user profile causes the error “The user profile service failed the logon. User profile cannot be loaded” when logging in to the account.

Whereas, for the “lost password“ or “lost admin privileges” kind of situations, you need to follow the instructions in the article Windows 10/11 Password Reset Methods for Lost Password Scenario to reset the user account password or restore the admin rights for the user account.

This article tells you how to enable the built-in administrator account (named “Administrator“) in Windows 10 and 11.
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Lost Administrator Rights in Windows 10/11? Recover the Account via Windows RE

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Summary: This article tells you how to restore your user account’s lost administrator rights and privileges in Windows 10 and 11.

This article discusses the “lost administrator rights” issue caused by tampered user account group membership. Like the ‘lost password’ scenario, losing your account’s administrator rights & privileges is an awkward lock-out situation where the user can’t run anything that requires elevation.

If your user account has lost admin rights, it may have been caused by malware. Or you may have inadvertently set yourself a “Standard User” via Account settings or incorrectly configured the Local Security Policy or user account group membership.

This means you can’t go back to the User Account settings page and set yourself as administrator. In such cases, the Yes button in the UAC dialog will be missing or grayed out.

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How to Edit the Registry Offline Using Windows Recovery Environment

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Sometimes, you may need to edit the Windows registry in offline mode to rectify a situation where Windows doesn’t boot after modifying some settings recently. Windows Recovery Environment (Windows RE) is an extremely useful platform that provides various system recovery options to diagnose and repair an unbootable Windows installation.

This post explains in detail how to edit the Windows registry offline, via Recovery Environment. The screenshots are from a Windows 10 computer. The instructions apply to Windows 11 as well.Read more

How to Run System File Checker (SFC) Offline in Windows 10/11 & Earlier

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The System File Checker (sfc.exe) is a useful tool that lets you scan the integrity of Windows system files and repair corrupt or missing system files. Numerous cases have been resolved by running the sfc.exe /scannow command.

However, there are situations wherein a corrupt or missing system file prevents Windows from booting normally or prevents Command Prompt and console programs like Sfc.exe from being launched. In such cases, Sfc.exe can be run offline via the Windows Recovery Environment (Windows RE) in all versions of Windows, including Windows 11.Read more

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