"You may not have permissions"

rosawoodsii · 02 Mar 2017

I reinstalled my sister's Windows 7 OS. Actually, there was a problem and after three reboots I chose "restore previous session"--and it wiped everything clean and reinstalled from scratch. Oh, thank you, I really needed that.

So I have a few things set up and wanted to download Firefox. When I click on the stub, I get a message that "you may not have the necessary permissions to use all the features of the program you're about to run. blah blah." It gives me the option to sign in as Administrator, which I tried but since I never set a password, it didn't like that; and then I tried signing on as current user, who also has Administrator permissions. No go. i've checked the permissions and they look fine, everything allowed, even turned off the firewall and antivirus in case they were the culprit, but no help.

Can someone head me in the right direction, please?

rosawoodsii · 04 Mar 2017

Still looking for an answer. What do I need to do to fix this. Anyone?

johncorosz · 04 Mar 2017

Enable Built-in Administrator Account in Windows

First you’ll need to open a command prompt in administrator mode by right-clicking and choosing “Run as administrator” (or use the Ctrl+Shift+Enter shortcut from the search box).
Note that this works the same in all versions of Windows. Just search for cmd and then right-click on the command prompt icon in the Start menu or Start screen.

Now type the following command:

net user administrator /active:yes

You should see a message that the command completed successfully. Log out, and you’ll now see the Administrator account as a choice. (Note that this screenshot is from Vista, but this works on Windows 7 and Windows 8 and Windows 10)

rosawoodsii · 04 Mar 2017

Thank you. That solved the problem.

Why, though, if I have Administrator permissions, do I have to go to the Administrator login? And why is it okay for Administrator login not to have a password, but if I try to switch to Admin when using my own account, it tells me I may have to have a password?

johncorosz · 04 Mar 2017

Something security related and keeps your OS safe from the bad guys (I imagine). But I am so happy to have helped you with this as I ran into several times in my travels.

Oh I could share with you so many side splitting stories of helping others with IT issues and the shameful treatment I would get while doing it politely and with a smile....