AI is very good at answering this sort of technical question!   Give it a try, nothing to lose:

1. In your Browser activate ChatGPT by clicking this link. It will respond:

Paste in your question:

“I recently activated, and then de-activated the Windows 10 hidden admin account on my PC. I then thought I’d make the machine even more secure by removing the admin privileges from my user account. Doh! Now I don’t have privilege to either activate the Admin account or restore admin privileges to my user account, so cannot run anything that wants to make any changes to my device. Is there any option other than a clean reinstall of Windows?”

Well done you Glyn, the above provides most of the information needed for AI to get a grip, avoiding that well known trap “Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer”!

I won’t repeat what ChatGPT suggests here for a very good reason.  If ChatGPT’s first suggestions are unclear or don’t work, you can, and should, ask it to clarify.  You can also refine your question and add more detail etc, plus what happens when particular suggestions are followed.  Usually done via a second search box at the bottom of the result page:

ChatGPT remembers the original context. making it possible for the human and AI to collaboratively home in on the answer.  There’s a certain amount of skill in it.

Dave

I have not used this but worth a try to recover a deleted admin account in Win 10

https://www.google.com/search?q=admin+account+deleted+windows+10&oq=admin+accoumt+fdeleted&aqs=chrome.2.69i57j0i22i30l2j0i5i13i30l2j0i8i13i30l5.13460j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Try:- start/run/whatever-> cmd, right click on icon and select ‘run as administrator’. If that works, type compmgmt.msc in the command window.

If not, you are probably looking at a re-install.

Next time, don’t disable the administrator account. Give it a password you can remember. Just in case.