How to delete a user account in Maverick OS that is greyed out

I just did the free upgrade to Maverick OS on my 2011 MacBook Air. It prompted me to make up a user profile which I put in as admin not realizing that I could have just used the previous one I originally did when I got it new. However I have decided to keep the new one and have copied all the files I want to keep onto a usb flash drive. I went then into system preferences and logged in as admin to make changes and changed the old admin user profile to 'standard'. Now when I log in as the new admin so that I can delete the old one that is now the standard user profile it is greyed out so that I cannot access it. How can I achieve this?

Did you click the lock in the bottom left corner?

Yes I did and then put in my PW. I tried that a number of times. Wish that were the answer though!

Is there any chance that the account you put back to standard was yours instead of the one you want to delete?

I think Jake is on to something... it sounds like you're trying to remove your active account and that's why it's not allowing you to do so. There is a work around way to remove it but it may leave you dead in the water, so I won't recommend it to you.

It is the original account (lets call it account #1) I made when I first started up my MBA Xmas 2011 that I changed from 'admin' to 'standard'. I want to delete account #1. I want to work off the new one (account #2) that I made when I first booted into the newly installed Maverick OS. Account #2 is currently the only one I have that is an 'admin' user profile. And I have Account #3 which is a guest user account I made up Xmas 2011.

So am I not able to delete account #1 now that I have made Account #2 the only 'admin'???

And you are logged into Account #2?

Yes I am logged in to Account #2 at present.

And the user names on Account # 1 and Account # 2 are not the same? There has to be a reason the system won't allow Account # 1 to be removed. It may be showing up as the same account or the user names may have somehow been duplicated.

Just in case there is something holding up Account #1, I would suggest a total shut down and then power back on and go directly into Account #2 and try it again. It may be something in cache.

I'm thinking of doing a clean install. I read on Apple's site to download Maverick and when it asks to install, choose no. Copy the installation program onto a usb flash drive. I am going to have to read up to find out what to do to proceed after that.

MacLicious said:

Copy the installation program onto a usb flash drive.

Click to expand...

It's not that easy (not hard either).
Look here: How to Make a Bootable OS X Mavericks USB Install Drive

Thanks to all for the helpful replies. I am in the process of making a bootable thumb drive. I did not see your reply when I started this Craig, but found an almost the same article from MacWorld that I am following: Should you do a "clean install" of Mavericks? | Macworld

It is not a fast process I am noticing! Thought I'd be done in a few minutes but it is more time consuming than that. I will post my results upon completion in case anyone is interested.

UPDATE: I decided just before I did a clean install to just follow some advice I obtained from the Apple forums. I was advised that I could use Directory Utility to delete the User Profile I didn't want (after making sure I backed up any files I didn't want to lose). It worked like a charm!