I AM the Administrator - but I can't aadd privileges to myself

[Jeffrey]

Folks,

I'm at my wit's end. I am the ONLY user of my stand alone
computer and I am the administrator. I am not on a
network. I know my password. But I can't install new
software because I don't have the privileges. And I can't
give myself more privileges and I don't know why.

The problems began a few days ago when I began trying to
install Norton SystemWorks 2003 Pro. Among the myriad of
errors, I continued to receive many such as: "Error 1303:
The installer has insufficient privileges to access this
directory C:\Program Files\ . . . The installation cannot
continue. Log on as ad administrator or contact your
system administrator."

I gave up on installing Norton for the time being. Now I'm
merely trying to install a DVD maker program so that I can
save all my data in case of a computer disaster. But I
keep getting the same kind of error: "Error 1303: The
installer has insufficient privileges to access this
directory C:\Program Files\ . . . The installation cannot
continue. Log on as administrator or contact your system
administrator."

I've gone into the Component Services, Computer
Management, Local Security Policy, Performance and
Services in an effort to afford myself every conceiveable
privilege. I confess that I don't yet know what I'm doing,
having only recently entered the Win XP Pro world from Win
98SE. Could someone please tell me the steps to do this?
All I want to do is back up my computer and be able to do
whatever I need to do with my system as administrator.

Thanks in advance.

(e-mail address removed)

 

[Roger Abell [MVP]]

It sounds to me like your are using NTFS filesystem and
the permissions on C:\Program Files somehow became
out of whack.
You could try opening a cmd prompt (start / run cmd)
and in it enter the commands
cacls "C:\Program Files" /t /e /g Users:R
cacls "C:\Program Files" /t /e /g System:F
cacls "C:\Program Files" /t /e /g Administrators:F
These will restore part of the installation default permissions
that normally exists on C:\Program Files, and it is the part that
is important for the environment you have described, where
you are a stand-alone system with yourself as the one user.