I recently purchased a new computer that came with Windows 7 and started installing my software. All of a sudden from one of those programs I got the message that I had to have administrator rights to run it. Say what?

I went into the Control Panel and attempted to change my User Account to Administrator. Nothing. Every time I went back in it said Standard again. So how the hell was I supposed to make myself an Administrator when I wasn’t an Administrator to start with? (Not to mention, why wasn’t the first user account I created the Administrator in the first place?)

I began searching. There must have been dozens of forums where people had asked the same question – how do I make myself an Administrator in Windows 7?

Well, it you’re looking for the answer, I finally found it. It only took about two hours to find the first step.

You have to start here: How to Enable or Disable the Windows 7 Built-in Administrator Account. For some bizarre reason, Win7 automatically creates an Administrator account when it’s installed, then disables it. Riiiiiiight. I used the first option of this tutorial, and it worked perfectly.

So then I went to Control Panel / Users and tried to change the level of my Marcia account – and it wasn’t there. So I searched for another hour, trying one supposed fix after another, till I came upon the one that worked. The tutorial isn’t entirely appropriate so I’ll give the instructions here:

1. Log in as Administrator
2. On the Start menu, click Run and type cmd
3. This takes you to a black box with the C:\prompt. At this point you have to do one of two things:
   1.  If it says C:\Users\Aministrator, type cd .. – this will take you to
      C:\Users. Then type cd youraccountname. OR
   2. If it says anything else, type cd\ – this will take you to C:\
      Then type cd Users\youraccountname
4. Now type: net user administrator /active:yes
5. You should get a message that says Operation successful.
6. Type exit

Now log off as Administrator and log back on under your own account. Test any software that was demanding you have Administrator rights. It should work.

I hope this works for you. It took me more than three hours of web searching and trying different suggestions. If it doesn’t work… well, I guess you can leave me a comment but believe me, I am not an expert. I was frustrated and furious and determined. (I even made the Administrator password “fuckthis.”)

I also recommend this tutorial:
Change Windows 7 to Look and Function Like Windows XP

I don’t know if you really need Startkiller. I put CS Menu in my Startup folder and so far that seems to be working. Not perfectly, but better than the awful Windows 7 Start Menu.