Strange issues with phantom user account

[kahlil88]

I work at a computer repair shop and a customer brought in a machine asking us to make one of the accounts limited, but for some reason it doesn't show up in User Accounts. It showed up in the alternate User Accounts (control userpasswords2) but it wouldn't let me change the account type so I decided to delete and re-create it, however after deleting the account it gave me an error saying the account already exists even though it now doesn't show up in either User Accounts controls. Oddly enough, I can still login as that user and User Accounts describes it as a "guest account" but it's not the usual guest account that comes with XP. I can't add a password or change the picture and it only shows up in User Accounts when I'm logged in as this phantom user.

[cluberti]

What does it show up as in lusrmgr.msc?

[kahlil88]

What does it show up as in lusrmgr.msc?

Apparently WinXP Home doesn't allow me to use the Local Users and Groups snapin.

Edited September 20, 2010 by kahlil88

[cluberti]

Ah yes, the dreaded XP castrated. I'm not entirely sure how to view those short of using DaRT, which isn't available without a Microsoft VL license for Windows + Software Assurance (SA). You could try using ntpasswd to see if you can get to it offline, but you might also want to consider that there could be some potential malware on there as well - seems very odd behavior for a user account.

I'm also not entirely sure of the legality of this, but lusrmgr.msc from an XP Pro machine may work if you have all the binaries copied over that it requires (might need to use depends to figure that out).