Can't run as Administrator

[TomDx]

I just installed Windows 7, Comodo, Firefox, and Itunes on a C300 64GB SSD, and noticed that I can't run programs as Administrator (even though I'm logged in as one)... all the 'check boxes' are 'greyed' out. I've been reading forums and trying suggestions all day... nothing works. I've created a new Admin account which didn't work and I've tried running FSUTIL from the command prompt, which also doesn't work... (says I need Admin rights)... same with Net USER. I'll reinstall if I have to, but this would be my 4th time due to previous install errors... so I want to be sure I don't wind up in the same situation. Any suggestions or thoughts would be appreciated... I'm running Windows 7 Home Premium

Thanks

Tom

 

[Hawkeye22]

What's the error say when you right click on a program and select "run as administrator"?

 

[TomDx]

There's no error... when I right click, select properties and then selecte Advanced, the 'Run As Administrator' box is 'Greyed' and can't be selected... and I'm definitely logged in as Administrator, it's my only Account.

 

[Hawkeye22]

Did you turn UAC off? If so, then it will already run as administrtor (if your account is an admin account) and is thus grayed out.

 

[TomDx]

When I go to UAC, I get a window that has a 'slider' that I can set to 1 of 4 positions... Always Notify, Default - Dim Desk Top, Default - Don't Dim Desktop, and Never Notify. If by turning it OFF you mean to set it to NEVER NOTIFY (and rebooting), then Yes, I've done that and 'Run As Administrator' is still 'greyed out'.

Thanks

 

[Hawkeye22]

No, I said if you turn off UAC (which you just did) then the run as admin option will be grayed out by default. I have mine set to always notify.

 

[TomDx]

I just moved the 'slider' all the way to the top... Always Notify... and rebooted... same thing... when I go to Accessories and right click on RUN, and then selected Advanced, the 'Run As Administrator' is greyed... that entire window is greyed.

 

[sminlal]

It sounds like your administrator account is disabled. Go into the "User Accounts" section of Control Panel and make sure it's enabled.

 

[Hawkeye22]

It sounds like your administrator account is disabled. Go into the "User Accounts" section of Control Panel and make sure it's enabled.

The administrator account is disabled by default in win 7. I don't think this will make a difference, at least it doesn't on my win 7 ultimate x64 edition.

 

[TomDx]

My Account, 'TOM', is enabled and labeled as Administrator, but won't let me Administrate... The built in Administrator Account is disabled, and when I do a 'NET USER' to activate it, it tells me I need Admin rights... I'm totally confused

 

[Hawkeye22]

Yeah, it's a catch 22. if you use the net user command, you have to right click on command.exe and select "run as administrator". You should (normally) however be able to right click on computer and select manage from the list. Then click on users & groups in the left pane. Now right click on the administrator account, select properties, and enable it from there.

Still, that is a different issue as I still don't think the admin account needs enabled to be able to run as administrator.

 

[sminlal]

Here's what I recommend you try:

- make sure that your TOM account has administrative rights
- turn UAC off (move the slider to "Never Notify")
- log off and log on again to your administrative account.
- Click "Start", type "cmd" into the search box BUT DON'T HIT ENTER
- Right-click on the "cmd.exe" link at the top of the start menu and select "Run As Administrator".
- Enable the hidden administrator account by typing "net user administrator /active:yes" into the command prompt window
- Turn UAC back on again
- Sign off and sign on.

 

[TomDx]

- Right-click on the "cmd.exe" link at the top of the start menu and select "Run As Administrator".

'Run As Administrator' is not available to me... it's greyed out... this is the problem.

 

[Hawkeye22]

This is really starting to look like a repair install or clean install will be needed.

 

[TomDx]

I've installed and re-installed 4 times already... the last time was just before I started this thread. I appreciate what you are saying, but I get the same results after every install... I can't imagine what I'm doing wrong... I'm only loading windows.

 

[Hawkeye22]

I just installed Windows 7, Comodo, Firefox, and Itunes on a C300 64GB SSD, and noticed that I can't run programs as Administrator (even though I'm logged in as one)

I've installed and re-installed 4 times already... the last time was just before I started this thread. I appreciate what you are saying, but I get the same results after every install... I can't imagine what I'm doing wrong... I'm only loading windows.

Did you check before you started installing all your programs?

 

[TomDx]

I believe I did... but at this point I'm so flustered I can't say for sure. I'll reinstall (for the 6th time) and
check it immediately after it is finished... I'll post the results later... I'm gunna wear out this SSD even before I get started using it!!

Thanks!

 

[Hawkeye22]

With you reinstalling so many times, you might want to image the SSD after installing windows and getting the OS updates installed. It will be much quicker than another reinstall if needed.

 

[bjsm]

Did you try - Computer - left click - manage

Check if your account is in the Administrators group. Looks dumb, but ive had a similar problem before.

 

[sminlal]

- Right-click on the "cmd.exe" link at the top of the start menu and select "Run As Administrator".

'Run As Administrator' is not available to me... it's greyed out... this is the problem.

If you've turned off UAC and logged off/on to an administrative account, then Cmd.exe should run with administrative privileges, which should allow you to use the "net use" command to re-enable the system administrative account.

If all else fails, boot to Safe Mode and use the "net use" command to enable the account.

 

[Hawkeye22]

Did you turn UAC off? If so, then it will already run as administrtor (if your account is an admin account) and is thus grayed out.

I already suspected this, but it wasn't the problem.

If you've turned off UAC and logged off/on to an administrative account, then Cmd.exe should run with administrative privileges, which should allow you to use the "net use" command to re-enable the system administrative account.


If all else fails, boot to Safe Mode and use the "net use" command to enable the account.

That may work, but it sure seems like the OS is botched at this point.

 

[TomDx]

I did a full install, but didn't load any other Apps. I went to the directory were Cmd.Exe is located and was able to right click and run as administrator... so I was able to do what I needed. However, if I go into the start menu and click on accessories, then right click on RUN and then Advanced, the 'Run As Administrator' is still greyed. I did the same with a few other programs, and they are all the same... is this normal??


Thanks for all the responses...

 

[K-zon]

7 has it to where you can run as Admin and change settings within admin sets without asking admin services to say, so you would have to find services of access probably that are not of admin services for admin services.

As in log in for the services wouldnt be anything of interest to say the fact of it, cause in terms admin services wouldnt be much of one if you can just log into it.

Otherwise you are fighting basically to say what the admin controls are on your computer. So the "Admin" part is a chance of issue against admin services.

So you would have to access your services where admin services could be applied for probably say non-applied non-admin services. Which should just be admin services.

So you probably on install have admin services set for use on the programs you are of in question and ask what of admin services of the programs you are wanting to use and have for access of admin services/privileges, whichever.

So for normal, probably is and isnt at times, depending on the question of interest to ask on at least. Right?

Cause software restriction against no access of services, is probably more likely at times though then none perhaps. Cause what would be the point of use with some programs if they didnt work, yes?

 

[MrJolly]

I did a full install, but didn't load any other Apps. I went to the directory were Cmd.Exe is located and was able to right click and run as administrator... so I was able to do what I needed. However, if I go into the start menu and click on accessories, then right click on RUN and then Advanced, the 'Run As Administrator' is still greyed. I did the same with a few other programs, and they are all the same... is this normal??


Thanks for all the responses...

Hi TomDx & all - Thanks also to 'tom's Hardware' website for years of tech help.

Sorry If I waffle on a bit here, but I'm trying to figure out A: What's happened to TomDx regarding Admin rights (chkdsk), B: The same thing happening to my Daughters brand new laptop, & C: An odd occurrence.

I've Just Read The Terms of Use, and Rules Of Conduct, and so I'm not going to mention a make or model number, hope this is all ok...

My daughter has just had Windows 7 Home Premium installed & set up along with C-Cleaner, AVG, Apache Open Office, & Spybot onto a new Laptop.

Gen Specs:

15.6 inches of diagonal wide screen TFT display
1366 x 768 pixel of resolution
Quad-core processor
4 GB DDR3 RAM
2MB L2 Cache
500GB Serial ATA hard disk drive 5400 RPM
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit operating system
3D sensor
Webcam

She, also like you TomDX installed I-Tunes when she first got it. When she brought it round to my house, we had very little time to look at it because, she didn't have the power supply.

I wanted to check it out for any obvious problems first off, so first I checked the registry with C-Cleaner, & there were at least 200 errors, which I cleaned doing the usual repeat cleaning.

I then disabled all windows updating, & disabled *Windows Defender* from services.msc (Defender's updates appear to be nightmare to remove). Windows Critical Updates / Updates in my opinion cause more trouble than actually improving your OS, & just eventually make your system slower & slower & will often simply mess your OS up. I think its best to stick to only the ones necessary for any software that may need one.

I Installed Microsoft Publisher for her. After this it seemed Ok, & also after a reboot, however when she accessed the internet to my router with wireless, something peculiar seemed to happen... When starting up everything was fine at first, then she shut the laptop down for a period of time, it then wouldn't shut down for ages, so eventually I held the power button down to shut it off due to lack of time & power we had left. Then she had to start it up again to get some phone numbers, & instead of the normal message "Start Windows Normally", "Safe mode" etc, (which most likely occurs on forced shut down). It simply had one option which said "Start Win7", after which it started an automatic search for repairs which again took too long (prior to all this everything was super fast), so I hit the cancel option & let it boot. Everything seemed fine, however I wanted to schedule a chkdsk for her using cmd, because A: I wanted to check for HD issues, & B: She started moving it around fast looking at it on boot up, because she was confused with what was happening (I said "No please don't do that while its booting up")

SO... When booted up I tried to schedule chkdsk in cmd prompt, & this message came up immediately "You Need Administrator Rights To Perform This Operation" (within the dos box). She is the Administrator, with no password ?

OK where apps or dos scripts don't function, you can mostly run an app with the admin option with no problem, however for one I've seen the greyed out admin option too in Win7 in several area's including in regedit, & found i simply couldn't change or remove privileges / rights / adjust admin settings / or clear the registry of errors unless in safe mode.

I've just done a test in Win-XP with chkdsk to run as a admin, & I'm getting the following message...

-------------------WIN-XP--------------------

Unable to log on:

Logon failure: user account restriction. Possible reasons are blank passwords not allowed, logon hour restrictions, or a policy restriction has been enforced.

-------------------------------------------------

But I can run & schedule a chkdsk from cmd dos prompt?

It appears Win7 has far more issues regarding all what I've mention, & now I wont use it at all, I use two Win-XP's (SP3) on two different Drives, one for online activity & one for offline work. So far so good.

Hope that info may have helped Tom or anyone else... I'm getting back to the shop on Monday to ask them why this has happened.

See you, & thank-you for the info.

 

[ilti]

I Have nearly the same problem. I am a normal user in my work domain, and when I try to "run as administrator" it doesn't shows me the notification "user account control " to type the administrator pass. When I "run as administrator" it opens normally and than shows me the notification "this package failed to install. Can anyone help me to show that user account control?