No Admin permissions, appear to be logged in as Guest?

SilentNoise · 07 Dec 2009

First noticed this when trying to delete a folder the other day and have yet to find an answer - tells me that I "require permission from S-1-5-21-515967899-96394560-1801674531-1003 to make changed to this folder". Since then I've also run into issues installing programs where I lack the permissions to do so.

- I'm the original installer of Win7 and only person that uses my computer - have it set to automatically log in and go to my desktop on start up.
- I log out and my account is the only one in the user list.
- Tried someone's recommendation going into CMD Prompt and entering "net user administrator /active:yes" to show the Admin profile in the login screen, but I get a "System 5 error" returned to me (no change in login screen)
- Cannot change security permissions for the profile itself - tells me I need to be an Admin to change those permissions.
- "S-1-5-21-515967899-96394560-1801674531-1003" appears in the users list when I try changing the permissions to folders, files and drives.
- Cannot change the level of security in my UAC or turn it off because once again, I don't have permission to.
- User Accounts windows says "Guest Account" under my profile name

Help... anyone? Big thanks in advance.

zigzag3143 · 07 Dec 2009

SilentNoise said:

First noticed this when trying to delete a folder the other day and have yet to find an answer - tells me that I "require permission from S-1-5-21-515967899-96394560-1801674531-1003 to make changed to this folder". Since then I've also run into issues installing programs where I lack the permissions to do so.

- I'm the original installer of Win7 and only person that uses my computer - have it set to automatically log in and go to my desktop on start up.
- I log out and my account is the only one in the user list.
- Tried someone's recommendation going into CMD Prompt and entering "net user administrator /active:yes" to show the Admin profile in the login screen, but I get a "System 5 error" returned to me (no change in login screen)
- Cannot change security permissions for the profile itself - tells me I need to be an Admin to change those permissions.
- "S-1-5-21-515967899-96394560-1801674531-1003" appears in the users list when I try changing the permissions to folders, files and drives.
- Cannot change the level of security in my UAC or turn it off because once again, I don't have permission to.

Help... anyone? Big thanks in advance.

Hi and welcome

It seems like who ever set up that system (you didnt buy it new I assume) locked the permissions down for whatever reason. If the SU admin cant change the perms it might either be owned by trusted installer (sys proc) or the former owner locked even teh SU out.

Best way to get rid of it is (yep you guessed it) do a clean install with the win 7 dvd if you have it.

If you do have the win 7 dvd you can also try a repair install. Both these assume that you dont have a backup to restore from

Ken J+

Barman58 · 07 Dec 2009

One question before going down the re-install road, (which may still be required) ....

Where are these folders/files you are locked out of? if they are on a drive or partition other than the system partition, then this could well be NTFS permissions retention from a previous OS install.

If this is the case you need to take ownership of the folders and re-assign permissions giving the administrators group and you actual user name full control.

Also when working with the SU administrator account this must be done in an elevated command prompt, (type cmd in the start search bar and right click the cmd.exe entry and select run as admin)

SilentNoise · 07 Dec 2009

zigzag3143 said:

Hi and welcome

It seems like who ever set up that system (you didnt buy it new I assume) locked the permissions down for whatever reason. If the SU admin cant change the perms it might either be owned by trusted installer (sys proc) or the former owner locked even teh SU out.

Best way to get rid of it is (yep you guessed it) do a clean install with the win 7 dvd if you have it.

If you do have the win 7 dvd you can also try a repair install. Both these assume that you dont have a backup to restore from

Ken J+

I did a fresh install on my machine using a newly formatted drive about a month ago or so, but don't remember playing with the permission settings on my account at any time. I do remember turning off the UAC not long after the install though because I'm usually very competent with these things and hate having "Big Brother" watching over me (damn to I hate irony)........ ah how I love learning the new bits in new OS' sometimes (I jumped from XP to Win7).

Anyway, I had a feeling you'd recommend the wipe because it looked to me like it was my only option as well..... grrr. Ah well. I figured it was worth the inquiry. At least I'm only a month into it and not 6-12 months in I suppose.

Barman58 said:

One question before going down the re-install road, (which may still be required) ....

Where are these folders/files you are locked out of? if they are on a drive or partition other than the system partition, then this could well be NTFS permissions retention from a previous OS install.

If this is the case you need to take ownership of the folders and re-assign permissions giving the administrators group and you actual user name full control.

Also when working with the SU administrator account this must be done in an elevated command prompt, (type cmd in the start search bar and right click the cmd.exe entry and select run as admin)

I'm getting these kinds of permission things all over the place - from installing programs on the C drive, deleting files from either of my other 2 drives, or even running the simple command prompt, so unfortunately it's not just one specific drive and it's folders I've having issues with. Definitely a good call though. I hadn't thought of that one.