Not Recognised As Admin By Windows 7

Auld Bint · 21 Mar 2010

Hi,

Would anyone please be able to assist with an issue where I am not correctly recognised as an "Admin" user by Windows 7 ? I have a couple of things that seem to indicate this even though there was only 1 user set up on the computer when I installed Windows 7.

For example, in Office 2003 I was constantly getting the EULA pop up when opening Office applications. I resolved this by right clicking the exe file for the specific Office application then selection "Run As Administrator"

Secondly, when trying to access all folders on the C:\ drive I have some folders that I get the "No Access" or "Access Denied".

There is only 1 login set up on the computer which by default should have admin rights but it seems that this is not being recognised. One point that may be relevant is that I did not elect to set an admin password when installing windows 7 and I assumed that the single login would automatically inherit the admin rights ?

Thx for any help
Auld Bint

mitchell65 · 21 Mar 2010

Secondly, when trying to access all folders on the C:\ drive I have some folders that I get the "No Access" or "Access Denied".

Would that be folders like "Documents and settings"?

Bill2 · 21 Mar 2010

1)This is a tutorial on creating new accounts in win7.

How to create a new user account in Windows 7 and Windows Vista

So check whether you followed these steps while creating the account. If you're not sure, create a new Admin account by following the tutorial.

2) For the constant EULA popups in Office, this is the MS support page with detailed instuctions.

You must accept the Office End User License Agreement every time that you start an Office program

Auld Bint · 21 Mar 2010

mitchell65 said:

Secondly, when trying to access all folders on the C:\ drive I have some folders that I get the "No Access" or "Access Denied".

Would that be folders like "Documents and settings"?

Yes, it was documents and settings.

Thx
Auld Bint

Auld Bint · 21 Mar 2010

Bill2 said:

1)This is a tutorial on creating new accounts in win7.

How to create a new user account in Windows 7 and Windows Vista

So check whether you followed these steps while creating the account. If you're not sure, create a new Admin account by following the tutorial.

2) For the constant EULA popups in Office, this is the MS support page with detailed instuctions.

You must accept the Office End User License Agreement every time that you start an Office program

Bill2,

The account I am using is an Administrator account, I have just checked it and it is definitely an admin account and it is the only account set up on the PC. It was the Office 2003 EULA that led me to think there was an issue as it seemed to be suggesting that I was not an admin.

As stated in my original post, I got rid of the Office 2003 EULA by right clicking the application exe file and selecting "run as admin". The point I am making is that if I was logged on as admin why would I still have to carry out this task to get rid of the Office 2003 EULA? I would have thought that it should never have appeared in the first place as the application was being opened by an admin user.

Thx
Auld Bint

Bill2 · 21 Mar 2010

Win7 has permissions issues. For the Access-denied problem, you need to take ownership of the problematic folder.

Right-click the folder that you want to take ownership of, then click Properties.
Click the Security tab, and then click OK on the Security message (if one appears).
Click Advanced, and then click the Owner tab.
In the Name list, click your user name, or click Administrator if you are logged in as Administrator. To take ownership of the contents of that folder, select the Replace owner on subcontainers and objects check box.
Click OK, and then click Yes when you receive the following message: You do not have permission to read the contents of directory folderName. Do you want to replace the directory permissions with permissions granting you Full Control? All permissions will be replaced if you press Yes.
Click OK, and then reapply the permissions and security settings that you want for the folder and its contents.

mitchell65 · 21 Mar 2010

Auld Bint said:

mitchell65 said:

Secondly, when trying to access all folders on the C:\ drive I have some folders that I get the "No Access" or "Access Denied".

Would that be folders like "Documents and settings"?

Yes, it was documents and settings.

Thx
Auld Bint

Thought it might be. Those files you are getting the access denied messages for have nothing in them for the user. Best advice is to leave them alone. The files and folders that were in the Documents and Settings folder in Windows XP are now located in C:/users/your name/
There is another thread on this forum where a member did manage to edit the permissions and got into those folders and the member finished up having to format the hard drive and reinstall Windows!
This is the official Microsoft quote on the subject :
Documents and settings is not a real folder. It is called a junction point and is used for legacy program interface.
Your data will be in C:\USERS\<your user name>\Appdata. This is a hidden folder. This the same in Vista as well.

I think you are already in the Admin mode and there is no need to set up another user unless you really want to. Your setup sounds just like mine. One user "Me" and no other accounts. The purists will say that you should have a second user for day to day work but I have always used just one user with full permissions ever since we had a choice which I think goes back to Windows 95 at least.
The last thing I want to do is to go against the advice of the real experts on this forum but I would very very strongly recommend that you do not try to get permission to open the Documents and Settings folder. It will only lead to disaster IMHO.

Dzomlija · 21 Mar 2010

Auld Bint said:

mitchell65 said:

Secondly, when trying to access all folders on the C:\ drive I have some folders that I get the "No Access" or "Access Denied".

Would that be folders like "Documents and settings"?

Yes, it was documents and settings.

Thx
Auld Bint

If you mean "Documents and Settings" with the lock icon on the folder in the root of your drive, then that is not a folder at all. It is infact a Junction Point for compatibility purposes. A DIR of my root drive:

Code:

 
 Volume in drive C has no label.
 Volume Serial Number is EE35-0757
 Directory of C:\
08/11/2009  12:11    <JUNCTION>     Documents and Settings [C:\Users]
25/12/2009  23:39    <DIR>          DVD Fab Temp
13/03/2010  07:44    <DIR>          Games
31/01/2010  11:18    <DIR>          intermediate
23/01/2010  05:47    <DIR>          MSOCache
26/12/2009  13:08    <DIR>          NVIDIA
14/07/2009  05:20    <DIR>          PerfLogs
21/03/2010  08:44    <DIR>          Program Files
12/02/2010  17:48    <DIR>          Program Files (x86)
13/01/2010  07:47    <DIR>          ProgramData
08/11/2009  12:11    <DIR>          Recovery
21/03/2010  05:14    <DIR>          System Volume Information
28/02/2010  09:41    <DIR>          Users
13/03/2010  07:47    <DIR>          Windows
28/02/2010  09:33    <DIR>          $Recycle.Bin
14/03/2010  06:48    <DIR>          Config.Msi
14/03/2010  06:56     3,220,676,608 hiberfil.sys
14/03/2010  06:56     4,294,238,208 pagefile.sys
               2 File(s)  7,514,914,816 bytes
              16 Dir(s)  18,055,806,976 bytes free

Other junctions also exist, as shown by a DIR of my "C:\Users" folder:

Code:

 
 Volume in drive C has no label.
 Volume Serial Number is EE35-0757
 Directory of C:\Users
28/02/2010  09:41    <DIR>          .
28/02/2010  09:41    <DIR>          ..
08/11/2009  12:11    <SYMLINKD>     All Users [C:\ProgramData]
08/11/2009  12:11    <DIR>          Default
08/11/2009  12:11    <JUNCTION>     Default User [C:\Users\Default]
24/01/2010  10:00    <DIR>          Peter Dzomlija
14/07/2009  09:45    <DIR>          Public
14/07/2009  06:54               174 desktop.ini
               1 File(s)            174 bytes
               7 Dir(s)  18,053,513,216 bytes free

If you are coming from XP, then the function of a Junction should be clear. XP used folders such as "Documents and Settings", "Default User", etc.

Most programs are supposed to use internal API calls to determine the location of user or system folders. Some programs do not comply with accepted programming techniques by improperly hard-coding certain user and system folders into their functions.

Junctions as they exist in Vista and Windows 7 serve to re-direct these poorly written programs that want to look in "Documents and Settings" (that no longer exists) to the relevant location "C:\Users"