Windows XP User rights...

Hey...

I upgraded a friends PC from 98SE to XP Pro.. I did spend some time telling him that upgrades like this are a bad idea, they hardly ever work properly, etc...

Anyway, it was all a bit fúcked up, but after some tweaking and letting windows update itself with XP2 and whatever else (Last resort - I thought it could hardly make it worse, so what the hell ) it's almost working fine... Except the user rights seem screwed up. Administrators don't seem to have administrator rights (can't do stuff in Computer management, run regedit, etc - Get the 'No permissions blah blah' message).

Even if you log in as Administrator you don't have rights... The only way to get full unfettered access is to boot into Safe mode and log in as administrator, but obviously that's a pain in the A$$.

If I create a new account while logged in as administrator(safe mode), then that account still has the problem.

I'm pretty sure a fresh re-install would solve these problems, but as everything else seems quite peachy I'd rather try to fix this one issue. He doesn't really care (or notice) things like this - he's relatively clueless - it just annoys me and thwarts my attempts at fixing any problems he does have.

Any suggestions gratefully received....

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"Sex without love is an empty experience...
But as empty experiences go, it's one of the best" - Woody Allen

Yeah did that, still no joy

I noticed you don't get administrator on the 'my first computer' style log-in screen, and switched to good-old 'type yer name in' style, happily lets you log in, just gives you the same problem....

It's annoying because there's some admin stuff you can't do (advanced user management for one), if you're in SAFE mode because of the WORKSTATION service not running (and it won't start in safe mode of course ).... and then if you're not in safe mode, you don't have rights... *sigh*

If there was some way to completely un-install and re-install the whole User admin/Security side without affecting the rest of the system that would be good, but I guess that's not possible.

It's just that from his point of view there's not enough of a problem to warrant a fresh install, although if I told him he needs it done then he'd be OK about it.. but it would be another week of my time, which I could use in more productive ways.

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"Sex without love is an empty experience...
But as empty experiences go, it's one of the best" - Woody Allen

LOL... don't I know it

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"Sex without love is an empty experience...
But as empty experiences go, it's one of the best" - Woody Allen

<A HREF="http://www.anothersite.co.uk/gallery/index.php?action=showpic&cat=3&pic=1856" target="_new"> Good reading material! </A>

<pre><font color=red>°¤o,¸¸¸,o¤°`°¤o \\// o¤°`°¤o,¸¸¸,o¤°
And the sign says "You got to have a membership card to get inside" Huh
So I got me a pen and paper And I made up my own little sign</pre><p></font color=red>

LMAO ...



<b> ...more people are driven insane through religious hysteria than by drinking alcohol - W.C. Fields </b>

LOL...

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"Sex without love is an empty experience...
But as empty experiences go, it's one of the best" - Woody Allen

I guess I was not as clear as I should have been ?

Your question was in regards to getting control of an Administrator or User password that has full operating access control, because since you did the update you have lost that ability on his computer. Therefore certain program ask for user rights.

Tweak UI overrides any and all accounts on the XP install and will re-apply them to any New User account you create with full access rules. Therefore giving you total access control to any resident program including Administrator rights.

<font color=red>GOD</font color=red> <font color=orange>LOVES</font color=orange> <font color=red>CANADA</font color=red>

I've set it up to give the normal login all the time anyway, and if I log in as Administrator I still don't seem to have rights, except in safe mode

I might have to try a repair install, but since It's updated to SP2 I'd probably have to go through all that again.

The problem doesn't seem to be giving people admin rights - it seems more like windows doesn't understand what admin rights <i>means</i>. I think the security side of the OS is a bit stuffed really...

When I upgraded mine from 98 DNS didn't work, but everything else was fine. Only a fresh install cured the problem, and I have a horrible feeling the same may be true of this

Ah well. It's not as if I promised him it would be fine - quite the opposite really.

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"Sex without love is an empty experience...
But as empty experiences go, it's one of the best" - Woody Allen