System Restore is being denied even though I&#x27;m the Administrator

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younghv

Hi pauldownham,
What is your specific OS?
If XP, is it Home or Pro?

You may have to boot into Safe Mode and log on with the 'Administrator' account if you're running Home.

Post back when you can.
Vic

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ASKER

The System Restore option is present, it just gives me the "You do not have sufficient security privileges to restore your system. Please contact your administrator ..." message when I try it.

I've signed on in Safe Mode and tried at the cmd prompt, but get same message.

My user name is Paul with full privileges (member of Administrators group), and I've obviously also tried signing on with the actual Admininstrator name too.

It seems to be an access rights issue for some reason?

OS is XP 5.1.2600 SP2

SOLUTION

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Doesn't fix it of course, but we can verify if its permissions or not...

ASKER

sirbounty,

i've tried the scheduled task ... the task window says the job is running, and rstrui.exe is listed in the task manager (0%) with user SYSTEM, but absolutely nothing appears on screen?

it means it's running...

now let's try the same thing with your credentials...

schtasks /create /ru username /rp password /sc once /st 09:00:00 /tn SysRestore /tr "%SystemRoot%\System32\restore\rstrui.exe"

ASKER

OK, had to call it sysrestor2 ("specified task already exists"), but then got a cmd warning " ..but may not run because the account information could not be set", and on running got "could not start" as the status.

BTW was I supposed to substitute actual name & password? 'cos I didn't.

:)
Yes, use your actual username and your actual password.

You can use
schtasks /delete /tn SysRestore
to remove the task...

ASKER

OK, sorry about the delay ... got called away!

No passwords had been set for either myself or the administrator, and the CMD line objected to blank passwords. So, I set a password for the administrator and tried again ... and it said running. Then rebooted, and tried again from the desktop to run System Restore, but still got the "You do not have sufficient security privileges to restore your system. Please contact your administrator ..." message.

ASKER

Update: I tried that scheduled task again to see what it said in Task Manager, and spotted a quick popup window as the job started giving the same security message. Interestingly, rstrui.exe is listed in Task Manager though?

ASKER

another update: TM only says running until you close the message!

SOLUTION

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ASKER

OK, its got a password now.

The rstrui in TM has gone away after each termination in the schedule window. It seems that the first one we tried (SYSTEM) is the only one that was genuine, the others have only been on the TM whilst the error message was waiting to be cleared.

SOLUTION

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Brian

It seems rather simple and you may have already checked - but, are you sure someone just didn't remove you from the Local Users and Groups? I'm assuming you're using domain credentials and if you don't have an entry in the local administrators group, well, there you go. Seen it happen numerous times.

If that's not the case and you don't want to use Recovery Console (personally I like a GUI better) then you can use BartPE or UBCD4Win and accomplish the same thing. See the directions here: https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/21465855/xp-machine-will-not-boot.html

It's pretty simple.

Hope that helps.

Jon Yelton

I would just log in as the local administrator, re add yourself as the domain administrator in user settings. Then see.

ASKER

Hi everyone ...

I've been out-of-office today, so not able to get back to you until now ..

the latest is that I used the trick I learnt last time on Experts Exchange, namely to use the "at 12:00 /interactive xxxxx.exe" command to run a program with SYSTEM status, which is above Administrator, so you don't get the privileges problem. This enabled me to run a desktop System Restore, which in turn reinstated the registry keys for AVG ... which is where the issue all began.

So, I'm now back up and running, even though my Administrator sign-on is for some still unknown reason not able to do things it should.

I'll probably now back everything up and reload the whole notebook from scratch when I get the time .. this will be a chance for a big tidy up and will no doubt cure all the little niggles that have arisen over time.

Thanks for all your help.