Stuck as a child in a single Family Safety Profile

Hello, Gregg

Welcome to the Microsoft Q&A

Thanks for your feedback. I read your description of the problem and I understand the confusion it caused you.

According to your description, your account has probably been successfully removed from the family group on Microsoft's cloud servers, which is why you can no longer be seen in your mother's account.

However, the problem lies on your local computer. When your account was still a child account, the various restrictions of Family Safety (such as website blocking, program permissions, etc.) were downloaded and deeply written into the user profile (User Profile) on your computer. When you left the family group, the system should have received a "remove all restrictions" signal and cleaned up these policies. But obviously, this process failed.

Now, your computer is in a technical "gray area":

I suggest you try to create a new user profile, which may help your current problem. This process will be more complicated than you expect, because it involves creating a new user account and migrating your personal files.

Step 1: Create a new local administrator account

• Log in to the computer with your current account.
• Go to Settings > Accounts > Family & other users. (In some versions of Windows, it may just be called “Other users”).
• In the “Other users” section, click “Add someone else to this PC” or “Add an account.”
• Next, a window will pop up asking for the new user’s email. Don’t enter anything, but click “I don’t have this person’s sign-in information.”
• On the next screen, again, don’t log in with a Microsoft account, but click “Add a user without a Microsoft account.”
• Now, you can create a local account. Give it a username (like [your name]Admin) and a password.
• Be sure to remember this password. Once created, you’ll see the new account in the list of users. Click it and select “Change account type.” Change the account type from “Standard User” to “Administrator.” This is a crucial step.
• Now you have a brand new, fully-powered, unrestricted local administrator account.

Step 2: Migrate your personal files

• Log out of your current (problematic) account and log in with the new administrator account you just created. You’ll see a brand new, clean desktop.
• Open File Explorer. Navigate to the C:\Users\ folder. Here, you will see at least two folders: one with your old account's name (e.g. C:\Users\youroldname) and one with your new account's name (e.g. C:\Users[yourname]Admin).
• Double-click to access your old account's folder. You may be prompted for permissions; click Continue.
• Now, manually copy and paste the contents of the personal folders you need (e.g. Desktop, Documents, Downloads, Music, Pictures, Videos) into the folders for your new account.
• Important: Copy the contents of the folders, not the entire folder. For example, open your old Documents folder, select all the files and subfolders in it, and paste them into your new Documents folder.
• Do not copy the hidden AppData folder, as that contains the corrupted configuration that caused the problem.

Finally, once you're sure everything has migrated perfectly, you can go back to Settings > Accounts > Family & other users, select your old, problematic account, and delete it from your PC to free up disk space.

I know this process is a bit tedious, but it can fundamentally cut off the trouble of "ghost strategy" and allow you to truly get a free and unrestricted account. Please follow the steps patiently.

Best regards

Ami - Microsoft Q&A Support Specialist