Unsolved
1 Rookie
•
1 Message
0
508
February 10th, 2023 17:00
Add a new user
Inspiron 15 3511
I have an Inspiron 3511. It is for business use so I'm trying to set it up for a new assistant. Right now, the ONLY things on the initial screen I see are the name of our old assistant (Julie) and a place to put her PIN to get into the laptop. On the bottom right, the only options are Wifi, a little person icon (which has narrator, magnifier, etc) and the power button, which only has Sleep, Shut Down and Restart.
I do not have Julie's PIN, nor do I know any of the answers on Microsoft to reset her password (why does it send me to MS anyway). There is absolutely no where to go to add a new user, log in as guest, etc. How do I get into this computer?! Dell wants to charge me $99 to tell me the answer. Infuriating
filbert
4 Operator
•
1.8K Posts
0
February 11th, 2023 07:00
Your first mistake was in setting up only one account on that laptop, Julie's account. Therefore, Julie was the Administrator. That is a mistake that most people make, and they run their PC always as Administrator. It is more secure to keep the Administrator account for times when it is needed, such as UAC elevation to install new apps. For normal day-to-day use all users should be in standard user accounts without Administrator rights.
If you need access to the current Windows installation, it may be possible to reset or clear the login. It is definitely possible to clear the Windows login for a local user account by booting from a Linux OS such as Ubuntu, downloading/installing a package and executing some command lines. I've done that via Xubuntu a few times. That can also be done via utilities such as Ophcrack. I haven't needed to do it for a Microsoft account, but it may also work.
Perhaps a simpler option would be to perform a clean install. You can use Microsoft's Media Creation Tool to install Windows. After that, you can create a first account, which by default will have Administrator rights, and then you can create a standard user account either as a local account or a Microsoft account.
If there are files on that drive that you need to backup, you can either remove the drive and connect to another working PC via a USB drive interface. Or, boot from a Linux OS on flash drive and copy the files to an external drive. Do that before you perform the new install of Windows.