Defragmenter won't run: "Access is Denied"

[p k]

To All....
I have got it. I checked the net forum for 2 whold days and more than 10 hours and even didn't have my meals and have a flight with my wife trying to be alone to solve the problem. Somehow in the forum I got the message.
Locate the dfrg.msc , right click, run as. Uncleck the protected my computer, then run. It worked.
Wow
Paul
24/11/08 Australia

 

[Brendan Gillespie]

Edgar,

Thanks for posting the regedit tip. Where did you find this technique? I backed up my registry, created the new key, and then tried to delete the old one, but it wouldn't let me remove it so I just ended up modifying the original. I then noticed that it was "REG_EXPANDABLE_SZ" in the first place, so I'm assuming that's not whats causing my "Access Denied" problem. Btw, I'm getting my error message when trying to schedule defrag.exe, not when running it normally through System Tools. Works fine for me through there.

-Brendan
Navy Cyber Defense Operations Command
Norfolk, Virginia

 

[Brendan Gillespie]

Edgar,

Thanks for posting the regedit tip. Where did you find this technique? I backed up my registry, created the new key, and then tried to delete the old one, but it wouldn't let me remove it so I just ended up modifying the original. I then noticed that it was "REG_EXPANDABLE_SZ" in the first place, so I'm assuming that's not whats causing my "Access Denied" problem. Btw, I'm getting my error message when trying to schedule defrag.exe, not when running it normally through System Tools. Works fine for me through there.

-Brendan
Navy Cyber Defense Operations Command
Norfolk, Virginia

 

[Jim]

Edgar,

Thanks for posting the regedit tip. Where did you find this technique? I
backed up my registry, created the new key, and then tried to delete the
old one, but it wouldn't let me remove it so I just ended up modifying the
original. I then noticed that it was "REG_EXPANDABLE_SZ" in the first
place, so I'm assuming that's not whats causing my "Access Denied"
problem. Btw, I'm getting my error message when trying to schedule
defrag.exe, not when running it normally through System Tools. Works fine
for me through there.

-Brendan
Navy Cyber Defense Operations Command
Norfolk, Virginia

It might be useful to know what Edgar posted...
Jim

 

[Merle L. Williams II]

I can confirm that the registry edit Edgar Sanchez provided resolved this issue. Thanks Edgar!

As a side note, when I right-clicked defrag and changed the protect my computer option in "run as," the change didn't stick; it only ran once. I *could* also run it as either administrator or myself (both are admins) or click "Author" in the right-click menu.

I started experiencing this very denial to run .msc applications after contracting W32.Silly, Google redirect virus, and [some other small annoyances]. They were hidden within a "license" Windows Media Player prompted me to install in order to play a video capture of the election night speeches. The license was associated with "Homeview." Symantec AV 10 Corporate caught the intruders, but wasn't able to stop all of the spawning and registry changes before it was too late. My Silly variant just happened to call kdkea.exe withing the Win/Cur/Run registry keys.

Symantec has generic removal instructions for W32.Silly variants here: http://securityresponse.symantec.com/security_response/writeup.jsp?docid=2006-071111-0646-99&tabid=3

I'm still fighting with the google one as SDFix helped but didn't cure me. Thread here: http://www.computing.net/answers/security/google-redirect-virus-help/23894.html

Good luck everyone!

 

[Dave]

I hope this helps somebody, I found out what the issue was. Also, this would happen with *ALL* .msc files, services.msc, gpedit.msc, diskmgmt.msc, etc.

It seems some virus, spyware or some other malware substituted this Registry Key [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\MSCFile\Shell\Open\Command] from a REG_EXPANDABLE_SZ type to a REG_SZ, hence the "Access is denied" because that wouldn't allow to form a proper command.

The solution is to remove the Key and recreate it by importing the following into the Registry:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\MSCFile\Shell\Open\Command]
@=hex(2):25,00,53,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,52,00,6f,00,6f,00,74,00,25,\
00,5c,00,73,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,33,00,32,00,5c,00,6d,00,6d,00,\
63,00,2e,00,65,00,78,00,65,00,20,00,22,00,25,00,31,00,22,00,20,00,25,00,2a,\
00,00,00

Peace!

Hello Edgar,

I'm suffering the same access problems, and wonder if you'd mind posting a
step-by-step guide to editing the registry in the way you'd suggested? I ask
as i'm not exactly computer literate and i'm having difficulty working out if
i need to modify the binary value, or exactly what the process is.

Many thanks,
David

 

[joe]

Win XP:
my defrag does not work, so I tried going to msc file

What does it mean when error says, MMC cannot open file dfrg.msc is not an
MMC console or was created by a later version of of MMC . This may be becuase
you do not have suffiecient acces rights.

What should I do ? the file exists, I can see it is there. Thanks.