Admin passed away

Question

Our administrator has passed away.we have no password we have a new computer and I switches off at 9pm how ca I stop it doing that

Answer 1

Hi julian kawecki,

I’m sorry for your loss, and to hear about your situation. I understand this can be difficult to manage, but there’s a few things I want to clarify first so we don’t attempt incorrect fixes. I can see that your post is tagged with Windows for Home, but as you mentioned the administrator here:

1. Is this a home PC, or was it part of a company / office setup?
2. Are you using a normal user account or do you also have admin access?

Without admin rights, you might not be able to fully remove the shutdown schedule. So the next steps you can do depends on your access. For now, while waiting for the answer, you can try canceling a pending shutdown before it happens:

• Near 9PM, press Windows + R
• Type: shutdown -a > press Enter
• Follow Q&A Assist's suggestions.

If you can’t change anything, neither edit nor delete tasks, it means you don’t have any admin rights to make changes to the behavior. In that case, you will need to either create a new administrator account (if possible), or reset Windows entirely to recover admin access.

---

If the answer is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and kindly upvote it. If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Comment".

Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.

Answer 2

To stop the Windows 11 PC from turning off or sleeping at 9 PM, change the power and sleep settings locally on the new computer. No admin password from the previous administrator is required if there is an account with local administrator rights on this device.

On the Windows 11 PC:

1. Open Settings (press Windows key + I).
2. Go to System > Power & battery.
3. Under Screen and sleep:
   • Set On battery power, put my device to sleep after to a longer time or Never.
   • Set When plugged in, put my device to sleep after to a longer time or Never.
4. If the device is actually shutting down (not just sleeping) at 9 PM, also check for any scheduled tasks:
   • Press Windows key, type Task Scheduler, and open it.
   • In the left pane, look under Task Scheduler Library for any tasks that run at 9 PM and perform shutdown or power actions. Disable or delete those tasks if appropriate.

If no one has administrator access on this new computer, a new local administrator account must be created or the device must be reset/reinstalled so that a new administrator can be configured.

---

References:

• Administrator unable to unlock a "locked" computer
• My username and password have stopped working
• How do I find my Microsoft 365 admin?