can't do ANYTHING

[Guest]

I have Windows Vista Basic on a new (less than 1 month old) Dell Laptop and
suddenly I can't do much of anything without getting "Access denied", "You
do not have permision..." (I'm the administrator) or NOTHING AT ALL happens.
I've looked through some of the posts here and tried everything even remotely
needed, but it all seems to boil down to a few major problems:
My C: drive is locked. I cannot even look at anything on it. It suddenly has
an extra icon on the bottom left of the drive icon. This little icon has two
people in it facing the same direction. What does THAT mean?
My administrator status is gone. I can log in to WIN, but only as a user.
My Windows reinstallation disk DOES NOT appear to be bootable.
My D: partition is NOT locked. I can LOOK at all the files on it, but if I
try to save any programs/files onto it, nothing happens. NO ERROR MESSAGE, NO
ACTIVITY.
any ideas? I doubt I'll even be able to reinstall WIN VISTA as I have no
access to c:.

 

[Frederik]

Hey

First the administrator account is hidden under Vista to get it back:

type in the search in start menu regedit.exe
Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows
NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\SpecialAccounts\UserList in the Registry Editor.
Double-click the Administrator key in the right pane.
If the Administrator key doesn’t exist, right-click on the above tree in the
pane, choose New, DWORD Value, name it Administrator and press .
Type 1 in the “Value data†box, and press enter .

This should enable the administrator account now log out and loging under
the administrator account and from there you should be able to fix some
problems to you're normal account.

Greets
Frederik

 

[Chris Game]

any ideas? I doubt I'll even be able to reinstall WIN VISTA as I
have no access to c:.

You seem to have some serious problems. Did you try ringing Dell
Support?

 

[Guest]

tried your suggestion, but got the usual: "Windows cannot access the
specified device path or file. You may not have the proper permissions."
Sincee I have to pay for Dell support whether they fix anything or not, I
wanted to try other options first. Looks like they're my last hope, or I've
got a new $1000 doorstop.

 

[Guest]

This seems to be a common problem and I hope you find the following solution
useful.
Step 1: Backup
Backup all your data, with Vista this is beautifully easy to do
Step 2: Turn user account control off
Start
Control Panel
User accounts
Add or remove accounts (you will be asked for permission, click on Continue)
Go to the main user accounts page (you will find this at the bottom of the
screen)
Turn user account control on or off (you will asked for permission again,
click on Continue)
Uncheck the bok
OK
Restart

Step 3: Make your changes

Step 4: Reinstate user account control permission (if you want to)
Follow the procedure in step 2 but this time you will not be asked for
permission.

I hope this works for you as it did for me. It may or may not be the
approved method and it took me some time to work it out - but it did work.

Regards

Stan
Yo