Denied all administrative privileges after permissions change

Hello all,

I've been lurking in this forum for years and generally found it more informative than other Windows 7 forums -- much more so than the Microsoft sponsored sites. Yesterday I was trying to solve a problem with massive replication/nesting of the “Application Data” folder and was reading this thread and found it so informative, I decided to join the forum. Little do I know I would need it two hours later.

In an effort to stop the replication, I changed permissions on C:\ (the above article suggested changing permission in “application data” but I decided to get cute) and now I’m locked out of all system files.

Here’s some of what I cannot do:

• Can’t run regedit.exe
• Can’t run cmd.exe as administrator
• Can’t even look inside C:\
• Can’t delete anything

I read this tutorial (Local Users and Groups) but can’t open it, I tried all three methods.

I logged-off and back on and it shows me as “administrator” but I can’t access anything. I don’t see “administrator” in any of the permission dialogue boxes. Even the owner of the computer is listed as “trusted installer”.

Here’s my User Account screen but I can’t do much but it does appear I can change the password. I haven’t done that yet because I don’t want to complicate things. Previously I did not have a password set.



I did System Restore (twice) but the lock-out remains. I was considering a re-install of the OS (I was considering doing that anyway to address some of the original replication issues) but I’m afraid the permissions would stay the same as they did on System Restore.

If I right-click C:\ and look at security, here’s what I get:



From here, I cannot click edit and when I click advanced, I get this:



I can’t Change Permissions. I can select the Effective Permissions tab but it doesn't seem I can change anything.

Here’s the usual denial I get:




But sometimes when I click, it just does nothing.

I’m fairly comfortable with Windows 7 but the convolutions of Permissions are over my head. It seems first I need to get administrative privileges back but I haven't been able to do that yet (I'm still reading those tutorials).

Needless to say, any help will be appreciated. I’m running Windows 7 Ultimate.

Hello Andrew,

Thanks for the reply.

The way it is now, I can not even get to UAC. I tried UAC from the run menu, accessing it via the God Mode app, and of course I tried through control panel but it does nothing..

I have been able to activate an administration account (via a regedit procedure in safe mode) but it's asking me for a password and I don't even remember setting a password. I found write-up on resetting the password which I'm doing now.

If I could just get admin privileges back, I'd deal with the permissions stuff later.

I appreciate the reply and I'm all ears.

Update:

Using the method above, I now able to log-in as administrator but I'm still denied a lot of access even on things that have the administrator shield.

I do now have regedit capability so maybe that will buy me something. Looks like now it a permissions issue.

Andrew, I noticed you told another guy who lost his password to do a "recovery"? Are you talking about a windows reinstall using the upgrade feature? I mentioned I was considering that but I wasn't sure it would reset anything because system recovery did not reset anything.

I'll keep reading...

Thank you for following up.

I ended up doing a clean install. I tried to repair install but for whatever reason, it could not locate my operating system. I believe the operating system was there because from the repair menu, I could open CMD and list the files (\dir) but since my OS didn't show up in the repair menu, there was nothing to repair and I didn't have much choice.

Even the clean install wasn't so clean because the original operating system (and presumably all my files) were in a sector that was protected -- I had no access. In a hair-pulling mood, I formatted the protected sector (with all my files) hoping it would make the space available (it didn't) but it was still protected!

Fortunately, there was enough room on my hard-drive to accommodate another install of Windows and, after the install, I could access the the previously protected (and now empty) sector. It shows up in My Computer as a separate drive. I didn't lose too much and it was definitely a learning experience... especially the junction discussion.

BTW, the problem I was having -- or thought I was having -- with the replicating application folders was space. I wanted to free up my hard-drive and was searching for large files (with Agent Ransack) to possibly remove, when I noticed all the application data folders and all of them had 20-30 GBs so I assumed I was eating up the HD. Had I thought about it, I'd have known something was amiss because I had maybe 30 replications of the AD folder (at 20 GB each) and my hard drive ain't that big. Anyway, at some point I took permission from everyone (as I thought someone suggested) and it was all bad news from there.

All's well that ends well. Thanks again,

Mark