Administrative Access denied to an Administrator??

[Guest]

I am trying to help a long-distance friend who is having trouble with WinXP
home edition... His system is set up to Autologon; He is the only user and he
has Administrative rights... yet, when he recently downloaded Real Player and
then tried to install it, he got an error message saying "Adminstrative
Access to system registry denied"

Also, he was having trouble changing the display properties, so he went into
control panel/system/device manager ... he got a message saying his graphics
controller did not have its drivers installed... he opted to allow the
correct drivers to be downloaded... which they did, but again was denied
access when the drivers attempted to install. We are totally stumped...
Administrators should have access to everything, right? Doesn't that include
installing software/drivers?
THANKS IN ADVACNE FOR ANY HELP!

 

[Juan]

These type of problems are usually due to spyware/trojan infections.... tell
your friend to download these antispyware programs and clean his computer.

Adaware SE Personal Edition
Spybot Search & Destroy
SpywareBlaster
CWShredder
http://www.majorgeeks.com/downloads31.html

All antispyware programs should be updated scanning the system and run in
safe mode for more efficient removal of difficult spyware. The antivirus
should also be updated and run and/or an online virus check should be done.

One other tip; Real Player has a bad reputation, it's installation includes
spyware and it also disables the System Restore feature in Windows XP, so
it's not a good idea to install that particular media player, there are a
lot of good media players that don't include spyware.

Media Players
http://www.majorgeeks.com/downloads32.html

great media player
http://www.apple.com/itunes/jukebox.html

more Media players.
http://www.download.com/Media-Players/3150-2139_4-0.html?tag=dir

Online virus scanns
http://housecall.antivirus.com/housecall/start_frame.asp
http://housecall.trendmicro.com/
http://www.pandasoftware.es/activescan/es/activescan_principal.htm

 

[Guest]

Thanks Juan,

I know he ran his norton to check for viruses, but it didn't find any...
Also, I truly doubt he has a restore disk anyway. I fear he will have to
reinstall WinXP.
Anyway, I will forward your suggestions about running anti-spyware progs
THANKS AGAIN