Question on adminstrator permissions

trinaz · 21 Mar 2011

On my Win 7 Pro 32bit PC...when I enter CMD screen and try to initiate a chkdsk /f at reboot...I am getting the following error:

Access denied as you do not have sufficient privileges. You have to invoke this utility running in elevated mode

There is only one user on this PC and I think/thought the user had full privileges ?

But I'm not sure what "full" actually means. Is there a difference between the user with administrative privileges and and some other built in Administrator account ?

Thanks....TrinAz

severedsolo · 21 Mar 2011

Hi trinaz,

By default even an "Administrator" does not automatically have full rights. You need to right click Command Prompt and click "run as adminstrator". You will then get a "UAC (or User Account Control) prompt" asking for permission to run the program as Adminstrator.

I really cannot explain UAC very well, but basically it is there to stop nasty things running amok over your computer with Admin rights. As I lack the technical knowledge to explain it better here are some articles that will help you understand it better :)

Some are more techy than others, you have been warned

What is User Account Control?
User Account Control - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
User Account Control Step-by-Step Guide
What is UAC & Why You Should Never Turn it Off | Windows 7 Tutorials

Bare Foot Kid · 21 Mar 2011

Hello.

You have to use an elevated command window.

Night Hawk · 21 Mar 2011

That's an easy one to fix! You can go to Start>Acccessories and right click on the command prompt icon to select the "run as administrator" option. When having the command prompt open by typing cmd at the Start>Run right click on the command windows itself for that.

Or you can follow the guide for creating a shortcut even download a shortcut for already having the elevated permissions. Elevated Command Prompt Shortcut

With the shortcut for this you can also right click to pin to the taskbar.