SOVLED! “You Need To Sign In As An Administrator To Continue But There Aren’t Any Administrator Accounts On This PC”

If you come across the “You need to sign in as an administrator to continue, but there aren’t any administrator accounts on this PC” message, there must have been startup issues and Automatic Repair is the best solution. Additionally, you can use the built-in administrator account, create a new administrator account, etc. Read to the end to bring Windows back to normal and get the most out of it.

The Usual Suspects

Startup

You run into the “You need to sign in as an administrator to continue, but there aren’t any administrator accounts on this PC” message as Windows starts up? Then there is a good chance the startup process is acting up. Unless you take action, there is no way Windows could go past the startup process to the main screen.

Account

If the administrator account of your PC runs into problems, it’s possible that Windows won’t recognize the account and the associated administrator privileges. That would lead to the “You need to sign in as an administrator to continue, but there aren’t any administrator accounts on this PC” in most of the cases.

What Must Be Done

Run Automatic Repair

In case things go south out of the blue, Windows includes Automatic Repair which could address a lot of errors. However, since you can’t reach the homescreen, you need to use Windows 10 installation media to run Automatic Repair. To run Automatic Repair, go through the steps down below:

• Step 1: Prepare a blank flash drive with at least 8GB of free space.
• Step 2: Plug the flash drive into another computer, visit the Official Microsoft site and download the Media Creation Tool for the Windows OS of your computer.
• Step 3: Open the tool, hit Run and accept the license terms.
• Step 4: In “What do you want to do?”, select “Create installation media for another PC” and choose the version of Windows on your computer.
• Step 5 Choose flash drive as your preferred media for this task. Wait for the process to complete and your Windows installation media should be ready. Proceed to unplug the flash drive from its current computer and plug it into your computer.
• Step 6: Turn on your computer then press the BIOS key as Windows starts up. The key varies between motherboards (Esc, F2, F10, F12, …).
• Step 7: Windows installation wizard will then appear but you don’t hit Next. Instead, locate and click “Repair your computer”. A reboot will now commence which will lead to Advanced Recovery.
• Step 8: Go to Troubleshoot > Advanced Options > Automatic Repair.
• Step 9: Follow onscreen instructions to finish the process.
• Step 10: On the next window, select the admin account to verify the email it is linked to as well as its password. The diagnostic tool is going to open and attempt to solve the problem. Last but not least, restart your computer and see how things turn out.

Use The Built-in Administrator Account

• Step 1: Boot up your computer using the Windows installation media.
• Step 2: On the Windows setup screen, press Shift + F10 on your keyboard to open Command Prompt.
• Step 3: Type the command net user administrator /active:yes then press Enter. That will create an account named “Admin”. Needless to say, the account possesses administrator privileges including the ability to create more Administrator accounts. Use that account to go to the homescreen.

Create An Administrator Account

If you have a hard time using the built-in Administrator account, you can create a new account. It’s noteworthy that the process is no walk in the park so be careful and follow the steps to the letter.

• Step 1: Boot up your computer using the Windows installation media.
• Step 2: On the Windows setup screen, press Shift + F10 on your keyboard to open Command Prompt.
• Step 3: Run each of these commands:
  • move c:\windows\system32\utilman.exe c:\
  • copy c:\windows\system32\cmd.exe c:\windows\system32\utilman.exe

Note: Replace “c:\” with your hard drive’s letter if necessary

• • wpeutil reboot
• Step 4: As the computer reboots, remove the media. You should be able to reach the sign-in screen for Windows.
• Step 5: Click the Ease of Access icon. Assuming that you don’t mess up, Command Prompt is going to open.
• Step 6: Create a new admin account by running the commands down below.
  • net user username /add
  • net localgroup administrators username /add

Note: Replace username with a name of your choice

• Step 7: Wait for the account creation process to complete. You will soon see the account on the sign-in screen but you still need to revert the changes made to Ease of Access to avoid complications down the line.
• Step 8: Boot up your computer using the Windows installation media.
• Step 9: On the Windows setup screen, press Shift + F10 on your keyboard to open Command Prompt.
• Step 10: Type the command move c:\utilman.exe c:\windows\system32\utilman.exe then press Enter.  The moment you see “Overwrite c:\windows\system32\utilman.exe?”, choose Yes and press Enter. Finally, remove the bootable media from your computer, restart your computer and determine whether the issue persists.