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Starting a few days ago, I am facing a very weird issue here on my Windows 8.1 workstation. I am unable to start programs or applications that require administrator privileges. This makes my PC completely unusable at the moment, because I cannot even run "taskmgr.exe" or edit user profiles (which is the reason, I am asking). The only thing working are "usual" programs, like my browser.
What happens whenever I am trying to start a program as administrator is, that there's a horribly long timeout where nothing happens, followed by the message quoted below:
Windows cannot find 'C:\Windows\system32\taskmgr.exe'. Make sure you typed the name correctly, and then try again.
I found many sites suggesting many things... things like:
sfc /scannow
dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth
runas /user:Administrator /profile "cmd.exe"
or enabling the built-in administrator
net /user:administrator /active:yes
However, all of these approaches are requesting administrator privileges and thus are not working.
Is there any way, I can try to fix this problem without reinstalling Windows (which appears to be my last option at the moment...)?
Aschratt
Posted 2014-09-24T16:08:39.313
Reputation: 111
Can you run system restore? – Wutnaut – 2014-09-24T16:10:29.173
@Wutnaut: I tried this too, but my boot image is somehow not recognized as such. I keep trying this anyway... any other hints would be nice! – Aschratt – 2014-09-24T16:12:54.390
Can you find C:\Windows\system32\tasmgr.exe? – lzam – 2014-09-24T16:24:57.823
Is this your personal computer, or a company resource? If the latter, go with the coffee & donuts solution suggested by @YetiFiasco. If the former, it's probably time for a rebuild anyway. Some very restrictive UAC configurations can prevent you from being able to run commands that require elevation without already being in an elevated session (e.g.: use an elevated CMD prompt instead of Start->Run), but you usually won't see that at home. – Iszi – 2014-09-24T16:25:09.800
When you ran those commands. What error exactly did you receive? Update your question to include it. – Ramhound – 2014-09-24T16:26:43.320
@Izam: Yes. @Iszi: It's my personal computer. Funny thing is: it's a 3 months old setup! @Ramhound: The error is always the same (the commands result in various forms of "unauthorized" errors since I am unable to start
cmdas admin...) – Aschratt – 2014-09-24T19:21:50.960Do you have access to an Admin-level account? Or is someone else responsible for administering the system? – Iszi – 2014-09-24T19:25:14.230
@Iszi: Yes, my local account is an administrator account. Another one does not exist (except the built-in admin, which I cannot activate, because I do not have admin privileges). – Aschratt – 2014-09-25T05:59:06.187