Why ACCESS DENIED if I'm Administrator?!

crosis · 16 Feb 2016

I installed a fresh copy of Windows 10 Pro onto my desktop. I did not upgrade the system. During installation i created my own account. The account type is Administrator. I turned off UAC.

What i don't understand is i often get the message "Access Denied" or you are not an administrator. Huh? What is going on? I thought if my account type is Administrator i would have full unfettered access to my local PC. On top of that I have to consistently right click and select Run as Administrator for CMD. I tried modifying the HOSTS file yet when i go to save i receive the message "Access to c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\HOSTS was denied." For HOSTS i checked properties >> Security. The "Group or User Names" section states:

Group or User Names
ALL APPLICATION PACKAGES [permissions: read & execute, read]
SYSTEM [permissions: full control]
Administrators (CARBON-PC\Administrators) [full control]
Users (CARBON-PC\Users) [read & execute, read]

Can someone please explain to me the logic of all this?

For the record i am logging into my user account that is account type "administrator". There is also an Administrator account automatically created by Windows from what i can see at the startup screen. I am able to log into that Administrator account but i dont want to use a different account. I need for this craziness to be explained.

LMiller7 · 16 Feb 2016

Welcome to the forum.

What is going on? I thought if my account type is Administrator i would have full unfettered access to my local PC.

That has not been the case since XP. That was OK when XP was released. It is not OK now.

Having a full time unrestricted admin account is convenient, but not very secure. The problem is that if you accidentally run a malicious program, and that is very difficult to avoid, it will have your unrestricted access as well and take full advantage of it. That is bad.

Starting with Vista an admin account by default has only the rights of a standard account. Only upon request do you have the full admin rights. With only standard account rights malicious software will be very limited in what it can do. That s good.

UAC cannot be fully turned off by with the control panel. It can be done but this is not advised. You will find many things do not work with such a full time admin account. Windows was not designed to work this way.

UAC is a compromise between convenience and security. Security always has it's price, and not just with computers.