Resolved Admin Account does not have Admin rights

I have 2 identical Dell LT's that have fresh Win7 32bit installs.

I personalized them by adding a new admin user to each one. Trying to install an update to Adobe Reader one updates fine and the other tells me that I need a user with admin privileges on the machine.

I have been able to install other programs such as MS Sec Essentials without problem.

Any thoughts as to why?

 

Verify the account, can you create new users from it?

 

Yes I can

 

A second User Account is an essential precaution: it enables you to boot into Windows if the main Account gets corrupted.

You appear to be unaware that Windows 7 installs a second User Account with Administrative privileges automatically. This is initially a hidden account, but can be accessed from the Command prompt in an emergency.

This is the command string to type (open the Command Prompt by right-clicking it and selecting 'Run as administrator'):

net user administrator /active:yes

Type of User account: Administrator
Location: C:\Users\Administrator


It is possible that, in the course of adding an extra user account manually, you might have set up a conflict. For example, if you have accidentally created two user accounts with identical names. At the very least, unbeknown to you, you now have three user accounts on each machine.

You may have become confused, if you attempted to take control of certain key files, using standard techniques, and have granted the necessary administrative privileges to the WRONG user account, if you weren't aware that you now have two admin accounts, as you were only expecting to find one.


Additional details -

If you are in need of changing the permissions for a file in order to take full control for a specific user account:


Step 1:

First, right-click on the file, then select 'Properties'.

Next, select the 'Security' tab, then click on the 'Advanced' button.

Next, select the 'Owner' tab. You’ll usually see that the 'Current owner' is 'TrustedInstaller'. Click on the 'Edit' button, then select the new owner, i.e. the user account which you want to allocate full control to.

If setting permissions for a folder (rather than a file) you MUST now click 'Apply'. This is an EXTRA step, one that is not needed if dealing with a file! You will then get two extra security windows asking for confirmation: click 'Yes' on both.

Then click 'OK' or 'Yes' repeatedly, until you've closed ALL the properties windows. The procedure will FAIL if you go on to Step 2 without doing this.


Step 2:

Next, right-click on the file (or folder) again; then click on 'Properties'; then select the 'Security' tab. Click on the 'Edit' button.

Select a user from the list: this must be the same user which you changed 'Current owner' to. If the user is not included in the displayed list: click 'Add', then type in the user's name, then click 'OK'.

Then, in the 'Permissions' box select 'Full Control'; then click 'OK'; then click 'OK' again.

 

I was aware that there was a hidden admin account but didn't think of calling it up in this situation as, I explained, on one machine the update installed when run and on the other, it wouldn't in spite of being able to install and update other programs on the offending machine.

I have in the past created multiple admin accounts on several Win7 installs without incident. Indeed in this case, the two machines were sitting side by side and the users were created with the exact same keystrokes at the same time so if there was an error on one the same would be true of the other.

The user accounts employed different names and I only created one additional user per machine

I did not attempt to take control of any files by granting permission. I simply tried to execute the downloaded Adobe update on each machine. As there was only ONE additionally created user account on each machine, selecting the WRONG one was therefore not possible.

I resolved the problem by using the Run as administrator option on the context menu for the offending machine.

Thanks