In Windows Vista, if you need to access the Administrator account built into Windows, you don’t have to boot into Safe Mode to do it. You may need to access the elevated Administrator account to access other user accounts to backup files in case of a failure.
1. Log into your regular account. go into the Start Menu, left-click “all programs”, then on “accessories”, then right-click “command prompt”, and left-click “run as administrator”, and enter the required password, if you used one when Windows Vista was originally installed.
2. The command prompt window will open. Now type, without the quotes, “net user administrator /active:yes”. You should then see the command completed successfully.
3. You should now be able to log out of Windows, and see the built-in Administrator account alongside your regular account as an option to use.
4. Once you have logged into the elevated Administrator account, left-click the start menu, left-click “Computer”, double-left click “Local Disk C:/” or whichever hard drive Vista is installed on, double-left click “Users”, then navigate through the users files and back them up as needed.