Home version and user needs Admin rights - how to get

I have a friend with a (HP) laptop and Win 10 Home. He tried to install a program (Band in a Box) and he got a pop up that (not the exact wording) it was not allowed for his user account. He tried to "Run as Administrator" and got the same thing. He doesn't know about an Administrator Account so I can't get in to try and change his account. He's had the Laptop for about two years and this is the first he's ran into the group policy issue.

How do I go about fixing this for him? I saw one of the forum tutorials about this but it required an Administrator account to access the Group Policy Editor. I did a search for the Group Policy Editor and it did not find it on the PC. Since he doesn't have or know the Administrator password, we are stuck.

When Windows 10 was first set up the first account it created would have had administrator rights. Although it's a very bad idea, Windows doesn't stop you from demoting this account to a standard user. This may be what has happened here.

There are ways to check if this is the case, the main one being if when you try to run something that needs admin access the UAC popup has the 'Yes' button missing or greyed out. Try to run 'Command prompt (Admin)' from the WinKey+X menu to test this.

There are also ways to fix this problem, see this thread, particularly post #4.
Window Ten Can't Run Anything in Admin

Cool. Looks like a complicated (for a non techie) procedure. I'll have to have him bring his laptop to me to try the fix.
Thanks

Jack

fireberd said:

Cool. Looks like a complicated (for a non techie) procedure.

Post #4 gave the easiest fix, to boot to Safe Mode. Try that first.

Try3 said:

... You can fix the problem using this procedure - If the Admin prompt has a greyed out or missing Yes button but no password entry box, use the Built-In Admin account in Safe mode to create two new Admin accounts - Forum article

Window Ten Can't Run Anything in Admin

OK, I missed that. Either way I'll have to do it for him.
Thanks

Fixed. I booted to Safe Mode, signed on as administrator and changed the user's account to Administrator (what he wanted). Thanks for all the help and tracking down the info.

Jack