"Blocked" my administrators account in Settings, accidentally - and can't log in to computer.

Dear MikeCole_1976

Welcome to Microsoft Community.

I understand that you do not seem to be able to log into your administrator account.

In order to better assist you, I need to ascertain the situation with you to prevent me from misunderstanding the problem.

Let's assume that your Microsoft account is A and your son's Microsoft account is B. Since your son is a child account, he is in your family group. Only the organiser of the family group can have control over the other family group members, so it looks as if account A is the organiser of the family group, and there are only two accounts, A and B, in that family?

Did you disable your account in Settings - Accounts - Family & Other Users?

• If your Microsoft account A is the organiser of a family group. Normally only your family members will appear in this list, not the organiser of the family group. Try clicking on the link to change the password for your Microsoft account A and then try to log in again.Change your Microsoft account password - Microsoft Support
• If your Microsoft account A is part of a family group, that Microsoft account is disabled. Then you will not be able to see that account in the login options. Please log on to your computer using the Microsoft account of the organiser of the family group that Microsoft Account A is a member of, and re-allow Microsoft Account A to log on to the system.

If my description does not match your reality or if you have questions please let me know in a reply.

Thanks for your patience and understanding!

Best Regards,

LucyW-MSFT | Microsoft Community Support Specialist

Hi MikeCole_1976

Thank you for the detailed clarification of the issue.

Through multiple tests, we believe that your inability to log in to your Windows account is not related to the previous disabling of that account. Once the account is blocked from logging in at home, the account will not be found on the Windows login page.

When you sign in to your Windows account and select "Reset Password", an error appears stating "This feature requires removable media, such as a USB flash drive. Please connect the USB flash drive and try again." This prompt will only appear if you are resetting your password for a local account. So your current account appears to be a local account, not a Microsoft account.

So let's summarise the current situation:

• You currently have two accounts on your computer that can log on to Windows.
• One is your son's Microsoft account B, which is a standard account and does not have administrator privileges.
• The other is your account A, which has administrator privileges and appears to be a local account.

In this case, I have the following two suggestions:

• Your account A was previously a Microsoft account was it? It was suddenly turned into a local account was it? Please don't enter your password, just press enter to see if you can log in when the password is empty.
• If it is still not possible to log in. In the current situation, since we do not have an account with administrator privileges that can log into the system. We can only reset the computer.

1. Press Windows logo key + L to get to the sign-in screen. Then restart your PC by pressing the Shift key while you select the Power button  > Restart .
2. Your PC will restart in the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) environment.
3. On the Choose an option screen, select Troubleshoot > Reset this PC, and then choose one of the options in the previous table.
4. Select "remove everything", if you choose to keep the files, you will still be required to authenticate at a later stage. This is also to prevent your computer from being stolen by others if you lose it.

Hope it helps! If there are any questions along the way, please share them with me in your reply.

Thanks for your patience and understanding!

Best Regards,

LucyW-MSFT | Microsoft Community Support Specialist

Hello Lucy,

Thank you for helping.

I'm Microsoft account A, in your scenario. I am the administrator or organizer in the family group. I guess.? I have had only one account on my laptop, which I know was administrator. I had just recently added an account for my son. I looked in settings to set the Time Limits for the child account and came to the image below.

My email was listed in the family group with the first letter capitalized. This made me suspicious thinking my son made an account, trying to circumvent me. So, I selected the Block button next to the account name.

Now when I try to log onto my computer, after restarting. I have two accounts to choose from. One account is "User" which is what I usually have, and the other is my sons. I try to log into User, and it says wrong password. It shows password Hint and a link below that "reset password". I click reset password and I get a popup window that reads.

"This feature requires removeable media, such as a USB flash drive. Please connect a USB flash drive, and then try again."

Also, this is what it looks like when I sign into Family Safety at Microsoft.com, using my sons' profile.

This is what it looks like when I sign into Family Safety at Microsoft.com, using MY profile.

I changed my Microsoft password and attempted to login, but it didn't work.

Please advise

Michael