i have a strange problem- i am  denied access to features on my
computer. I turned off the computer, and in safe mode, i checked user
accounts- and although at rebooting my computer the last time, i had
only signed up for one user- upon reboot i found that there were 2- 1
of them says "administrators" and the other one is mine. by the way, i
let my family use this computer, but they have to use my account

i also went to bios, and my options were limited- the system would not
let me make any changes-the user area was grayed out- and i was not
able to make any changes there either,.

my question- why do i have an administrator; what should i do to
regain control of my pc?
i have an XP home edition

If this is your first time using windows XP you may want to buy a
beginner's guide to it... There are significant differences in the way
XP works as compared to Windows 98.  In regards to your question, the
"Administrator" user is a user level that comes with all Windows XP
and Windows 2000 machines. It is there to server as the... putting it
simply "big boss" of the computer. Whoever first sets up (and
therefore whoever owns) the computer usually logs in as administrator
the first time they use it. A lot, though not all, of computers that
are purchased in a store have a user called 'Owner'.

I recommend you logon as administrator, and try and make the change
you were previously attempting. The usual login/password for
administrator is:

Username: administrator
Password: password

Or sometimes you can leave the password blank (if that doesn't work)

Once you are logged in as administrator, I would strongly recommend
giving the other username you login with administrator privelages.

More than anything, I cannot strongly enough recommend buying a
beginner's guide to Windows XP Home edition, as quite a bit is
different about this Operating System than you are used to using with
Windows 9x/ME