Very recently, I read on this site that one should have at least one Administrator-level account in addition to the Administrator account that's hidden by default. About a year ago, I was reading a lot of articles about security that suggested that one should never use an administrator account for day-to-day operations. Not having seen the SuperUser advice, and not realizing that I was doing something that was going to mess me up later, I changed my account to a Standard User account, and as a result have lost administrative access to all user accounts. I did not lose or forget my password (I never had a password on my regular account -- a no-no I suspect).
I have tried using the hidden administrator account to change the account type on my account; this does not work; it defaults back to Standard User. I have tried creating a new Admin-type account; same result. I am the only user of this computer, and it is in a home setting. Is there any way to create a non-hidden Administrative privileges account that doesn't entail removing and reinstalling Windows 7 Professional? This is the OS I'm now using; I have no plans to upgrade to Win 10.