Windows 10 Admin account loses all functionality?
I recently started having an issue on my windows machine with folder permissions. The start menu folder suddenly became inaccessible to any program that tried to create a shortcut there. I worked around it by just taking ownership.
Now I'm facing a much worse problem where many operations that require admin elevation suddenly doesn't work even after a UAC prompt. This has really become a problem now that I want to install wsl on this machine. Running wsl --install just returns the wsl usage info and wsl --update throws a UAC prompt, but fails saying "The requested operation requires elevation" even while logged into the built in Administrator windows account.
Normal programs can still use admin elevation (mostly), but everything that windows prompts for behaves as if I'm a regular user despite still giving and accepting a UAC prompt. The Microsoft Store has also seemingly lost the ability to update or repair itself also so that's probably related.
I've tried all the usual stuff with /DISM, /sfc, every Microsoft troubleshooter. They found no issues. Creating a new admin account lets me create the account but then it inherits the same issues. I can't even gain admin elevation in safe mode. I'm really at a loss. I don't want to have to do a system refresh because it takes so much time to get set back up, but at this point I don't know what else to do.
Has anyone else ever encountered an issue like this? I've tried searching for this and just end up on a bunch of identical 'help' pages telling me to right click -> run as admin or the generic Microsoft employee pointing me to reinstall again.
Windows version 10.0.19045 Build 19045 in case that matters
Edit: I never did find a solid reason why this was happening. It wasn't my university Maya account. While reinstalling windows on a freshly formatted drive I kept getting errors that eventually led me to discoving my ram was going bad. Got it replaced and installed windows just fine. I have to assume the problem started because of memory errors. Thanks for the suggestions everyone.
My guess is some type of virus is affecting your system. Is there any apps running in task manager that look suspect?
Nothing I don't regularly use or isn't windows related is running. Windows defender doesn't show anything weird and I ran malwarebytes to check a little more thoroughly.
Fair enough. Good luck!!
Are there other accounts in the administrators group? Just the two admin users you created? You could try to push permissions on the whole c: again.
https://youtu.be/RSOEqb_QglA?t=792
I tried this and it kinda worked. I have access to more than before, but the command prompt and power shell both lack any admin capabilities. I did notice that there were 2 seperate admin group entries on a lot of the system folders permissions.
I never touched the permission settings before having this problem and the only thing I've installed recently were some python libraries and Maya.
I'll probably be better off in the long run just doing the old fashioned 'blame windows update and clean install'. Thanks for the suggestions everybody.
Just to clarify, you never clicked "register this pc as part of school or organization"?
This has me curious now. I'm using an educational license through my university to access Autodesk Maya. It never prompted me for anything like that, but installing Maya and this issue started happening around the same time.
Microsoft office with a school account is the only time I've ever seen that prompt and I always decline it because it's not neccessary for the office login to work.
With the AI articles having, essentially, broken Google.. have you tried looking for help by adding from:reddit.com to the end of your search?
Sorry if it's silly advice and doesn't help, I just wanted to throw it out there in case you hadn't yet tried googling specifically in avoidance of those shitty help sites!
I tried all sorts of searches, but on ddg since Google has kinda been useless this past year. Ddg wasn't much more useful in this case though. It's hard to search for this problem without being flooded with generic windows permission issues that don't apply to my situation at all.
I ran into an admin lack of permissions issue on one of my personal laptops recently. Mine was a folder that couldn't be deleted (no it wasn't System32).
DDG, Google, Reddit didn't help at all. Changing folder permissions didn't/couldn't work. I tried command line things. I tried programs that were "guaranteed" to delete. Nothing worked.
I got so frustrated with it all that after a few hours, I went full nuclear. The folder is gone now. And it took me less time than I expected to set everything back-up.
Side question: I wonder where else you could go to find relevant information? Also, why is google so bad these days? Also, I’m glad it’s not just me.
There is a site called tenforums.com which seems to have all the discussions pertaining to tips, tricks, techniques, etc. surrounding windows ten. Other highly reputed forums about Windows OS in general are thewindowsclub.com and superuser.com.
There is more constructive discussion on these sites than even Micorosoft's own support site.
Can you track down what you were doing before you lost these rights? Is a Domain Controller involved at all? Did you create any local policies? You can try booting in safe mode and see if the issue persists - if it doesn't, then it's likely related to some recent install (edit: I just noticed you already tried safe mode, so it's not that relevant then)
You can also try disabling UAC and see if it helps. Another thing you can look at is Event Viewer, after you boot, and when you try to use your administrator privileges. It might have some useful information in it.
Edit: you said that you installed some Python libraries, so you can check if your environment variables look ok. I don't see how it would affect the admin permissions, but it's worth a shot.
Very much this. Some software or app seems to have induced this behavior, this ain't normal behavior I've seen on any windows 10 install so far. OP just needs to track it down and then do a clean install by formatting the hard drive. That's probably the only way to ensure that all is back to normal at this point.
Someone else mentioned the pc being added to a school or organization. The Autodesk Maya license I use is through my university, but it never prompted me to add my pc to any sort of group or indicate control over the system.
I should be done with my final project soon and will completely remove Maya to see if that makes a difference. It's the only notable thing I've installed recently.