Question

Why does my Enterprise Administrator acount get denied access on my laptop?

Asked by: digitalpete

I am an enterprise admin on my Server 2008 domain (albeit a small domain). When I log into my Vista Ultimate laptop, should I not have enterprise level permissions? I was trying to rename some folders and I am getting "access denied" errors. Am I missing something? If the folders were in use, which I don't believe they were, wouldn't I get a warning that they were in use?

I created my user profile in Active Directory and I am a member of domain users, domain admins, enterprise admins... Any light you can shed would be nice. Thx,

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Asked On
2009-06-24 at 15:25:44ID24520022
Topics

Server Applications

,

Windows Vista

,

IT Administration

Participating Experts
3
Points
500
Comments
17

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Answers

 

by: theras2000Posted on 2009-06-24 at 15:56:24ID: 24706691

Check the NTFS perms on the actual folder/s and see which groups have rights.  Trace the membership back and double-check that you're part of those groups (or groups of groups etc).  Are you accessing these folders via a UNC or just on the local drive?  Also, just try logging on as a local Administrator account and see if you can modify the folders.  If not, there may be something corrupt.

 

by: maninblac1Posted on 2009-06-25 at 00:19:54ID: 24708944

First i'll assume that the laptop is in fact correctly joined to the domian.  And that it's not a "the laptop has no way of authenticating you against the controller" problem.

Reasons you might get access denied are...

If the file's in use (windows vista won't tell you this).
You can't rename a "Junction", a "hard link", such as "Documents and Settings" in vista.

Other than those, i can't really think of anything other than a permissions problem.

 

by: aleinssPosted on 2009-06-25 at 12:04:56ID: 24714832

Are Domain Admins listed in the Local Users & Groups?

You can verify this by going to Start>Run bar, type in "compmgmt.msc", drill to Local Users & Groups>Groups>Administrators and make sure Domain Admins is listed.

 

by: digitalpetePosted on 2009-06-25 at 12:17:29ID: 24714930

aleinss: I am currently disconnected from the domain, however, I am still logged into my domain account. When I launched the compmgmnt.msc, I do not see ANY reference to domain or enterprise admins. Shouldn't I be able to see the domain admins even though I am NOT connected to the domain?

maninblac1: I was trying to rename a local users profile folder. Is this a "junction"?

thereas: checking permissions is a good suggestion, however, I am presumably logged into the domain laptop as an enterprise admin. I should be "omnipotent" shouldn't I?

 

by: aleinssPosted on 2009-06-25 at 12:21:02ID: 24714956

No, you won't...you might see a large hexadecimal looking number which is the SID of the domain groups...which may or may not be the correct groups.  You'll only see these groups when you are connected to the domain

 

by: digitalpetePosted on 2009-06-25 at 12:25:38ID: 24715005

aleinss: I don't see a hexidecimal #, but even so, My security permissions should retain even though I'm not logged into the domain, right?

 

by: maninblac1Posted on 2009-06-25 at 12:26:30ID: 24715017

I would assume that the user's profile folder is essentially a junction, or at least....potected in the same way a junction would be.  Renaming a profile folder would mess alot of things up.  The only way to do the acheive the change you would desire is to be logged in as "SYSTEM" which, from all i know isn't possible to do in vista.

That being said, there's nothing a user should need to be do as SYSTEM ever.  My guess is that the folder you're attempting to rename is a protected system folder.

 

by: aleinssPosted on 2009-06-25 at 12:30:00ID: 24715055

All domain accounts would show up as SIDs...so you if aren't seeing that, then you probably need to log in as a local administrator as suggested by theras2000

 

by: digitalpetePosted on 2009-06-25 at 12:31:54ID: 24715075

maninblac1: I  would agree that the profile folder is protected, however, before I found the solution to the issue that was propmting me to rename the user profile folder, I was able to rename other profile folders, just not one specifically. I think the core of the issue is what aleinss is getting at, which is that the domain user groups are not propagating down to the laptop (probably dude to user error). I am going to go down this road to see where it leads. Thanks for your input.

 

by: maninblac1Posted on 2009-06-25 at 12:34:44ID: 24715111

You might try running from an admin control prompt

gpupdate.exe /force
To ensure that all group policy settings are refreshed on this system.

You may also see if you can "take ownership of the folder in question".

 

by: theras2000Posted on 2009-06-25 at 15:42:36ID: 24716686

Just for reference, Enterprise Admins is not an automatic member of the Domain Admins group, so you don't get God axs to everything.  However, you said you're a member of Domain Admins anyway, so you should have God axs.

It's possible that your user a/c has been denied axs to the particular folder in NTFS perms.

 

by: digitalpetePosted on 2009-06-26 at 06:53:19ID: 24720924

OK... So here's what I did. I logged into the domain as myself (domain and enterprise admin). Since I had shut the DNS server down earlier (I'm still in the testing phase), I went into my network connections, and tried to hard code my DNS server IP (after the server was started, of course) and I was denied access. I had to log in as local admin, point to my DNS server, then log in as me. I went into the user manangemnt console and discovered I did not have rights to make any changes in there... SO.... I logged back in as local admin, browsed to the server, picked myself from the list of users, and added myself to the admin group on the local machine. I logged back in, and now I can see that my domain accnt is a local admin.

I guess this is the REAL question:
When I log into the domain for the first time from my laptop or workstation, should all the permissions that I have on the domain apply, or propagate down to the laptop? And if they do not, why?


 

by: aleinssPosted on 2009-06-26 at 07:02:33ID: 24721004

By default, when you join a PC to a domain, it adds Domain Admins to the local Administrators group of the device.  Sounds like that didn't happen in this case.  

If it's not doing this, you could use a GPO to add them that way via a VBScript file:

On Error Resume Next
Set Objgroup = GetObject("WinNT://./Administrators")
Set Objuser = GetObject("WinNT://YourDomain/Domain Admins")
 
objGroup.Add(objuser.ADsPath)

 

 

 

by: digitalpetePosted on 2009-06-26 at 07:22:09ID: 24721212

I rechecked my group membership. Turns out I was NOT a member of the domain admins group this whole time. My apologies for this oversight. What's the purpose of the Enterprise Admin? Shouldn't the Enterprise admin "trump" all other admins?

I now see the Domain Admins group. I guess the real issue was that I was not a member of the Domain Admins so the group was not getting created. I was under the impression that All groups would propagate to the laptop. Rookie error.

Thank you for all your time and help.

 

by: aleinssPosted on 2009-06-26 at 07:37:24ID: 24721368

For domain stuff, yes.  You can only do forest trusts as an EA and SA for Schema changes.  If I remove Domain Admins from local administrators group, I can block you as an Enterprise/Domain Administrator from connecting to my PC.

I would have thought that Enterprise Adminstators would have been included in Domain Admins, but I guess not.

 

by: theras2000Posted on 2009-06-26 at 10:29:22ID: 24723065

I imagine that (purely speculating here), as people don't need to run as an EA/SA often, then they're considered to be more like service accounts than regular user accounts.   The security principle of DA is almost synonymous with the job role of sys admin, which is quite tangible.  It's obvious that a local sys admin should want to play wiht the registry and network of a computer in his own location.  Yet he wouldn't want a sys admin from another office playing with his users' computers (which he could do if the EA was an automatic member of the DA).  That my 2 cents.

BTW, you should get familiar with the runas command and the common .cpl & .msc files. e.g.
'runas /u:clientpc1\administrator ncpa.cpl'.  would have let you modify the network settings without having to logoff and logon as the local admin.
'runas /u:clientpc1\administrator lusrmgr.msc' would let you modify the local groups (eveb though you'd have to logoff and on for the new permissions in this case).

 

by: digitalpetePosted on 2009-06-26 at 11:20:56ID: 24723549

Once again, thank you all for your valuable input!

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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