Restrictions ???

Went to access Control Panel, and got the following message:

"RESTRICTIONS

This operation has been cancelled due to restrictions in effect on this computer. Please contact your sysem administrator. "

What kind of **** is this? I AM the bloody administrator, and I haven't put any such restriction anywhere. How do I bust this?

 

Home or Pro?

 

Davott

If you are sure you are logged on as administrator, that you have not been playing with the security settings, used no utility that has to do with security, then you need to do a deep virus and trojan/worm scan.

It is possible that your Virus scanner has been disabled.

What happens if you go to safe mode?

Here is plenty of AMMO!

Online Virus scanners
http://www.anti-trojan.net/at.asp?l=en&t=onlinecheck
http://www.bitdefender.com/scan/licence.php
http://www.commandondemand.com/eval/index.cfm
http://www.computercops.biz/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=770

http://housecall.antivirus.com/http...ie&venid=sym&plfid=20&pkj=OFRIWOBWYSHSFVIGMKI

http://www.pcpitstop.com/antivirus/default.asp
http://www.pandasoftware.com/activescan/com/activescan_principal.htm
____________________________________________

Special Virus cleaners

Stinger http://vil.nai.com/vil/stinger/
PQremove http://www.webmasterfree.com/software/2911.html

These are the Delta force for only the newest and most prolific viruses today.
Use these if it is possible that a virus may have disabled your regular scanner.
For a quick clean, and then if they find and clean anything do a full deep scan with a full-fledged scanner.
If you suspect a virus has disabled your regular scanner you should do 3 things

1. Download STINGER and PQREMOVE and run them. NOTE: always download them do not run an older one that you have had; these 2 are updated almost daily.

2. Do an online dedicated Trojan/worm scan and online regular virus scan.

3. If your virus scanner was up to date, and "IF" either 1 or 2 above finds a virus then it is possible that your virus scanner has been disabled. You should completely uninstall and reinstall your virus scanner update it and run it in full mode with max settings.

SysClean http://www.trendmicro.com/download/tsc.asp

Mike

 

XP Home.

Anti-virus program has been up and running at all times with latest updates.

Did a complete virus scan (all files) = no infections.

Was able to get into Control Panel thru Safe Mode. Wanted to see if there was anything I could do in Administrative Tools to fix that stupid RESTRICTION error report, but couldn't find anything.

So, question remains--what causes it, and how does one fix it should it ever recur. [Did a System Restore, so I'm alright now, but who knows for how long!]

 

There are vermin that can turn off some well known virus scanners, but it looks like it is working.

Don't be to confident in any virus scanners. Do an online scan ocasionally just to keep yours honest!

I would forget this incident unless it happens again.

But I would do an online and an up to date Spy?adware scan.

Mike

 

These spyware sleazes are getting more clever all the time. Some of them not only hijack the browser, but they add entries to the registry like:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Policies/Microsoft/Internet
Explorer/Restrictions/NoBrowserOptions

or

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer\NoControlPanel

to prevent access to Internet Options or the Control Panel in order to prevent people from being able to change it back.

 

Hi, davott ~

Assumming you are the only user on this unit, haven't fat-fingered security settings and the fact that Home doesn't give much in the way of a group policy editor arouses my suspicion of spyware as well.

I back both Mike's & Abraxas' statements regarding the fact you can easily be lulled into a false sense of security with an AV prog and can be disabled from performing regular admin actions faster than you can say 'sonafa3itch!' if you are not taking a proactive stance in protecting yourself.

If you can, I firmly recommend you download Spybot v1.2 to that machine. You will need to download the latest updates, run it, then develop the habit to do so regularly.

Although it has yet to be determined if in fact a trojan or spyware is the offender here, the registry changes Abraxas posted will have to have the end keys (only!) manually deleted since such illegitimate reg changes won't be noticed by SpyBot until after such occurrences of installation, if this indeed is the case.