ARD 3.1 only showing one user – not necessarily the active user

On one of my client computers, everytime I accessed the computer via ARD, I was viewing one account - the admin. If that user was not the active user I would see the lock icon momentarily pop up. The reason I'm writing is that under certain circumstances this would be an awesome capability - the ability to administer a computer without disturbing the active user - it's not something I know how to control. Did anyone know this capability existed? Does anyone know how to control it? BTW, I wound up using kickstart to delete and reinstall the software and now I'm back to "normal". thanks, Rick Darenberg