cant get local security - error opening database

[James W. Long]

Hi all,

When I try to look at local security settings -> local policies -> audit
policy,
local security settings -> local policies -> user rights, and
local security settings -> local policies -> security options
on my client machine, which is a mameber oy my domain, it now says:

Windows cannot open the local policy database.
An unknown error occured when attempting to open the database


Its also true if I log on as the administrator of the local machine.
I cant see those 3.


And the worst part,

My other users cant logon to the machine anymore,
they are immediately logged off now!
They do have the right (authenticated users do) to log on locally.

only The administrator can log on and not get booted off again.

something changed, dont know what.

how do I fix it? what happened?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.


Thank you in advance,

James W Long.

 

[Steven L Umbach]

My guess is that either you have a corrupt secedit.sdb file on the computer or you do
not have proper permissions to the folder. Verify that system and administrators have
full control to \winnt folders and subfolders, particularly \winnt\system32. The
links below are two ways to deal with a corrupted local security database. Also look
in Event Viewer of your computers where you are having a problem to see if there are
any clues there.

http://www.jsiinc.com/SUBH/TIP3500/rh3561.htm
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/sag_scetroubletn.mspx

Your problem with users sounds like corrupt user profiles or permission
problems.Probably not corrupt profiles if the problem is widespread. Verify that
users group has read/list/execute permissions to root/drive folder, program files
folder, and system folders at and under \winnt. Users should also have at least
modify permissions to their profile folder under documents and settings. I would also
do some serious virus scans with at least two products since you are experiencing
unexplained strange behavior. Perhaps you tried to modify file permissions with Group
Policy/security templates and the permissions are too restrictive. The link below is
for a free Sysclean malware detection and removal tool from Trend Micro. Just
download Sysclean and the pattern file to the same directory, unzip and execute. ---
Steve

http://www.trendmicro.com/download/dcs.asp
http://www.trendmicro.com/download/pattern.asp

 

[James W. Long]

Steve:

Great!
I fixed the users logging in problem, they had been in admin group before
and I did remove them to plain users, who had no access on the drives
anyplace so I fixed that. They can log in now, again.

I am working on the corrupt secedit.sdb problem now.

Thank you for the help.

James W. long