Administrator Rights

[Toonss]

I am not sure when it happened or how, but I lost administrator rights? I
have two profiles 1. John (administrator) 2. Sharon (limited). Sharon has
her own computer and very rarely ever uses this one.

When I am logged in as John(adminstrator) I can't access "regedit" anymore.
(I never mess with regedit and never manually edit my registry.) The reason
I found out that I can't access regedit is because my Windows Update doesn't
work either. When I ran through the Windows Update troubleshooter that said
to access "regedit" and then I discovered I couldn't. The error message I
get is: "Registry editing has been disabled by your administrator." Even
though I am logged on as the administrator.

So I logged off and logged in under "Adminstrator" proper. Even logged in as
"Administrator" I can't access the "regedit". I also can't access MS Power
Toys Tweak UI. I get the message: "Tweak UI has been disabled by your
administrator", but I am logged in as the "Administrator".

I was able to change the profile Sharon(limited) to full administrator and
under this profile I can now access "regedit" and Tweak UI, but I still
can't under Administrator or John(administrator) profiles.

Any ideas how I can fix this? I don't know how this happend. I don't know
what happened and I don't mess with registry setting or things that I don't
understand.

Thanks for any help.

 

[Guest]

Assuming you have not already done so, the first step is to scan your system
for virus and/or spyware. Do a full system with your AV program. You can
also do a "double check" with online virus scans:
http://housecall.trendmicro.com/
http://security.symantec.com/ssc/home.asp
http://www.pandasoftware.com/activescan/com/activescan_principal.htm

If you do not already have reliable anti-spyware programs you can find them
here.
http://aumha.org/a/quickfix.htm
Follow the instructions in numbers 1 through 5, download all the recommended
programs, and follow through with scanning. The site has numerous helpful
links and useful information.

 

[Toonss]

SPYWARE!

Thanks. I don't know why I didn't scan my system right away. I normally scan
my system with Ad-aware and Spybot once a month. The scans only turned up 4
pieces of spyware, but that was enough to lock me out. Deleted the spyware
and everything is working again.

I have Trend Micro Internet Security installed and running, but since it was
spyware it didn't catch it.

Thanks again.

 

[Guest]

I also cannot use REGEDIT because of the error message that my administrator
has blocked it. I am running Windows 98-SE which I do not believe has an
Administrator capability. I ran the SPYBOT and XOFTSPY programs which cleaned
off a lot of problems, but I still cannot run REGEDIT.

Any other hints? Thanks for your help