I messed up my Group Policy Settings in WIN2K! Need to know how to reset!

[buddhafest]

Hi, ok i was changing some group policies in windows 2000
using gpedit.msc

but the thing is I made a big mistake and now I can't log into windows with my administrator account.
It says that it the account cannot log in with interactivity.

SO i log in with my power user account but I can't access the user settings because I need an admin account.

I tried editing the GP with my power user account but I don't have the rights to view them.!!

I'm fREAKING OUT!

how do i set it back to all default?!?!

[John Prophet]

possibly related.... http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=226243

at least its a bump, lol

[Beemer]

You're hooped with WinY2K. There isn't any reliable way of restoring an old registry unless you had a exported registy backup.

There are third party programs that will create the backup and restore same but you have to have hind site and install the programs just incase you need to restore your machine to a previous state.

Someone else may have a solution. Hang in there!

Cheers!

[Siliconjunkie]

Try this:

Log in as a power user, then go find gpedit.msc, right click it and select "run as" and use the administrator account. Or you can try the same thing with the mmc executable.

May get you in there well enough to fix it. If it does, make another account with admin rights.

[buddhafest]

Ok so far what i found is that there is this file called

recreateDefPol.vbx

but the thing is ia can't find it anywhere.. i googled it and i just get info about how the file works but nothing bout downloading.. and

the MS support site doesnt have it either even though one site says I can get it from there..

can anyone helpe me look for it?? THIS IS nerve racking.. If all else fails i might be forced to format and do a clean install again.. but i dont want ot do that

[buddhafest]

to silicon:

I can't make another admin account,

I log in as my power user, but when i try to make another admin it asks for the admin password , which for some reason doesn't work

and I tried running gpedit.msc but Im denied access from viewing the policies because i dont have the rights..

[Siliconjunkie]

see the part above about using "run as" to use the administrator account.

As the power user, open a command prompt and run this:

runas /user:administrator mmc.exe

Then add/remove snapin from the file menu, add the Group Policy snapin. Undo what you did.

[eagle1]

Try to log in as a power user (your account).
You should be able to create an account with admin privileges or better yet, go to the control panel, users, advanced and select properties over your username and add yourself to the administrator group.

I think now you should be able to run it. Also, did you tried what Siliconjunkie said?

[buddhafest]

no can do fellas, I can't change my power user setting into an admin setting because I don't have access into the User Settings , it always asks for the admin password and the password never works

and I just tried the runas

i get this error

RUNAS:ERROR: unable to run - mmc.exe
1285: logon failure: the user has no been granted the requested logon type at this computer

[Siliconjunkie]

hmmmm, I am thinking you may be stuck.

The big problem is that beyond this, you will basically have to hack the box to get it working and I am not even sure that you can since we are trying to go around the whole idea of security groups. The best answer may be to reinstall.

Acutally I am surprized that you were able to lock out the admin account.

Some other things to try:

#1 Start the telnet service, disable ntlm auth, telnet to localhost and login as admin? May not work because the mmc is a gui type app. There may be a command line way to change this. I will have to do some looking.

#2 Get another w2k/xp machine and use the MMC to connect to this one and modify it. (This is pretty likely to work if you have access to another box with 2k or XP on it)