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I set up Windows 7 with a couple of standard accounts, and an administrator account (called Odin). I can log in to Odin just fine from the Welcome screen. While logged into Odin I can do anything that requires administrator privileges without a password: just hit Yes in the User Account Control dialog.

If I am logged into one of the other accounts and I do something that requires elevation (e.g. most installers, and some control panel functionality), then Windows presents me with a User Account Control dialog asking "Do you want to allow the following program to make changes to this computer? To continue, type an administrator password, and then click Yes."

The account shown in this dialog is Odin, so I enter Odin's password. But Windows redisplays the dialog with the message "Logon failure: unknown user name or bad password." This always happens, and has done so for many months, probably since I first got the computer.

Why does Odin's password work from the Welcome screen, but not when elevating? Please note that I am not asking how to recover Odin's password. I remember the password I originally set for Odin, and it works as it should from the Welcome screen, but is not recognized when elevating. The password has no funny characters, just letters and digits.

Thanks!

Update: Because of a hardware problem, I had to wipe and re-install this machine. At first I did not experience the problem described above. After I installed Windows Live Essentials (for Family Safety), the problem described above recurred. Although the account I was logged into was not controlled by Family Safety (as it was my own account), I still experienced the problem of the administrator's password not being recognized. When I uninstalled Live Essentials, however, the problem disappeared.

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  • Does the username include a space? Feb 10, 2011 at 17:10
  • No, it is Odin, four letters and nothing else.
    – Lee C.
    Feb 13, 2011 at 17:48
  • @Lee: Can you post that edit as an answer? It allows people to vote on it besides your question (one vote per post per user) and you can accept it yourself for additional reputation. Jan 6, 2012 at 23:15
  • Hmmm. It looks like I can't post my update as an answer because the question is more than six months old, and I don't have a reputation of 10.
    – Lee C.
    Jan 26, 2012 at 19:45

2 Answers 2

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From the OP's update to the answer, posted here for completeness sake:

Because of a hardware problem, I had to wipe and re-install this machine. At first I did not experience the problem described above. After I installed Windows Live Essentials (for Family Safety), the problem described above recurred. Although the account I was logged into was not controlled by Family Safety (as it was my own account), I still experienced the problem of the administrator's password not being recognized. When I uninstalled Live Essentials, however, the problem disappeared.

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Could be that Odin is not the actual username, but just the Account name. Check the User Accounts control panel and view the properties of Odin's account. Another thing to try is when the UAC asks for the password and shows the Odin account name, retype the name in but include the computer name as well, i.e. username: computerName\Odin.

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    If your compute name is long you can also type the username as '.\Odin' Feb 12, 2011 at 15:56
  • The dialog doesn't give me a way to change the username. It just presents the username as Odin and there's nowhere to edit it or to change to a different username. The only choices are to enter a password and click Yes, or click No.
    – Lee C.
    Feb 13, 2011 at 17:46

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