Resolved Installed TaxCut, lost access to Program Files folder

I installed H&R TaxCut on my Administrator account, and when I switched to the non-administrative account, it wanted to have administrator rights to start the program :-(. The 2005 version didn't require that, so I went back to the administrator account, uninstalled it, and then tried to install it on the non-administrator account. That wouldn't work, so I reinstalled it on the administrator account. It would start from the administrator account.

When I went back to the non-administrator account, I couldn't use Windows Explorer to get into C:\Program Files. I got the "Access Denied" pop-up.

I expect that I've got some user rights messed up . . . seems like this has happened before. So I went over to the administrator side, right clicked on Program Files, and made my administrative account name the "owner" of that folder and all subfolders. It took a little while to change all that. But it didn't fix the problem. The SYSTEM and my administrative user now have Full permissions, and "Administrators" and my administrative user name are both "owners" with full permission.

I've messed something up, haven't I?

Terry

 

I noticed something else. Where normally I have my non-administrative account set as a "power user," it had switched to a regular user. I changed it back to "power user" using the User2 utility, but that did not fix the problem. Access to C:\Program files is still denied.

 

I also tried what the Microsoft Help forum said about giving permissions at

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/298345/en-us

and

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308419/#4

and gave the permissions to my administrative user. That did NOT fix the "Access denied" problem on the Program Files folder for the non-administrative (power) user.

Terry

 

One more observation, since this happened, when I try to open a document in Microsoft Word 2003, I immediately get two dialog pop-ups.

One says, "The command cannot be performed because a dialog box is open" and the other says, "Windows Installer, preparing to install"

The second one times out, and I get a Microsoft Office 2003 Setup box that says, "Error 1311 Source file not found: E:\PA561401.CAB Verify that the file exists and you can access it. "

When I Ok the first and cancel the second, a Microsoftw Office Word 11.0 box comes up and says, "An error occurred and this feature is no longer funtioning properly. Please run Setup and select "Repair . . . " to restore this application." When I hit okay, the Word document finally opens.

I still suspect all of this has to do with the TaxCut install that somehow messed something up.

Terry

 

Thanks for the suggestion, Steve. I thought of it myself today at work, and was encouraged when I got home and saw you suggesting it also. And when I ran it on a Saturday restore point (I installed the new software on Sunday), I was also encouraged because Windows obviously changed a lot of files during the system restore . . . probably all the ones in the Program Files folder.

All that said, the problems remained on the non-administrative account. When I went back to the adminstrative user, a message popped up saying that it could not restore the system, and try another restore point. So I tried one two days back. No change. So I tried one just before the last installation of the TaxCut program, hoping I could walk back through the problems. No change. Then I tried the last restore point after I'd installed the software the last time. Still said it couldn't restore.

I'm still denied access to the Program Files folder, and still get error pop-ups when I try to open a Microsoft Word file. So if the installation of the software or my uninstalls and reinstalls caused it, System Restore was unable to fix it.

Any other ideas?

Terry

 

Try SFC /scannow from the Run window. Be ready to supply your XP installation CD when/if asked.

 

I found this. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/313222

It describes how to reset Windows Security settings back to the default values. Might be worth considering. Notice it applies to XP Pro and Vista, not XP Home.

 

Tried this. Had to run it from the administrator account side (would not run on the non-administrator user). It seemed to be doing something, because it asked for me to click "retry" about a dozen times with the Windows CD-Rom installed. Unfortunately, it did not change the behavior. Still has both problems on the power user account.

Do I need to reboot? I'll try that.

Also, I'm not sure if I've been clear on this, but nither of the problems (either the Access Denied folder, or the problems with Microsoft Word 2003) are there when I use the Adminstrative user. They only occur on the power user account.

Terry

 

I'm not surprised that the SFC /scannow didn't help since I have never had it do anything meaningful that I could tell, yet I keep trying.

Try the kb313222 reset and hope.

 

I have XP Pro. But the article sounds pretty scary. It suggests that I might have to do a complete disaster recovery, and I haven't done a disaster recovery backup using the XP system since 2005. I have a much more recent one using my regular backup software, but I'm more than a little nervous that this could turn into a real mess.



It just seems weird that "Program Files" is the only folder on the non-administrative use side that I cannot access. All the others on the C: drive are accessible. Seems it has to be something to do with that one folder.

Terry

 

Well, you can try addressing that folder and resetting its permissions.

I use the cacls command in the following for things like this:

cacls "C:\Program Files" /e /g owner:f

You'll have to change "owner" to whatever your user name is and run that command from a command line window in XP. It will grant full access to the user you place in the script to replace "owner ".

 

I think while you were leaving me the message, I was over trying something similar. I pulled a couple of messages off Microsoft support site, and went to my administrative user, and looked at the owners and permissions for the Program File folder. For most of the folders under that user, there were several owners listed, including the name of my non-administrative account username, as well as just "Users" and some other inoccuous names. With the Program Files folder, there were only the name of my administrative user name, and "Administrators ".

So I added my non-administrator user name, and gave it "full permissions." It took a while to accept that, so I'm guessing it was passing those permission into everything in the folder.

When I went back to my non-administrator user account, everything was now working fine, including the Microsoft Word. So I seem to have "fixed" the problem.

But before I celebrate too much, have I given too much permission to that folder to maintain the security of a non-administrator account? Or is that protection provided at a higher level in the system than the folder level?

Terry

 

I doubt it's worth worrying about since you have only assigned full user rights to one particular user and you think that user needs such rights and probably had them previously. Don't question good fortune.

If you can't sleep, go back and change the permissions to "Read only ". I don't think it's worth the trouble though. You could even create a new user identity and set the proper access permissions and then dump the old one.

Me, I would let it stand "as is ". It ain't broke so don't fix it.

 

I'm not sure I know the difference between full user rights and a folder's permissions, v.s. administrative rights. I have this user on the "non-administrative" side defined as a "power user," and the other user is an "administrator." I was told that this offers protection from attack if I'm only logged on to the power user side.

Does this make any sense?

Terry

 

It's my understanding that the PowerUser type of identity is for legacy compliance and no longer recommended by MS. Perhaps read up on this and see if you agree. I have never chosen to use that type of identity and certainly wouldn't if it caused any problems.

If you are running MS certified programs, I see no need to worry about restricting access to users.

Reference

 

My understanding is that by running in a non-administrative rights user environment, it inhibits malware from doing things bad to your computer, and makes it harder for someone to log on remotely and do damage. This is because it is hard to install stuff in a non-administrative rights environment.

I know I've read something to that effect here, or I wouldn't have started to do my work at home from a non-administrative user. And where I work (Fortune 50 company) they have taken away administrative rights from all the computers, because they determined that this would have prevented the spread of a virus that hit us a couple of years ago.

Terry

 

Try updating TaxCut- it will restore account permissions to the OS defaults.

 

I just looked, and you are correct. But I'm not grateful to H&R Block.

I've wasted several hours fooling with this problem to get my system back to normal, before your post.

What possible dumb mistake could H&R Block have made to cause this problem
in the first place?

I think H&R Block needs to get their quality act together. The first time I used it, in 2005, they had a printing error with Epson printers that caused me to have to refile both my state and federal tax as ammended returns. They still have not fixed that in the 2007 edition.

Amatuers.

Terry