[SOLVED] Alternative method to "Run as Administrator" ?

[wyliec2]

My primary Windows 10 desktop had some updating a few weeks ago (all my other Win10 platforms updated fine). In any case, I wound up doing various 'fixes' sfc, DISM, Windows recovery,etc.

I eventually got it updated and it has been working fine EXCEPT - I have several Office apps in the task bar - Word, Excel, Access with many pinned files. After I finally got it working, I could no longer open a file by rt-click on the task bar icon and dragging up to the desired file - all I was able to do is launch the application. Today I started digging around to try and resolve the issue and was going to run sfc and DISM, BUT I cannot Run as Administrator.

The Start button works and I can launch an application but when I rt-click and chose Run as Administrator nothing happens. It is not my permissions - my account is Administrator. I've tried both wired and wireless mouse; I started in Safe mode - always with the same result rt-click launch and rt-click Run as Administrator do not work.

I haven't found any way to open a CMD or Powershell window as Administrator. I really don't want to rebuild this machine as getting all the apps and licensing re-installed is a PITA....

Any suggestions on how I might be able to get in to run DISM as Administrator???

TIA for any ideas!!

 

[kerberos_20]

try to go to user account control settings, here u can disable administrator needs
otherwise if dism and sfc are all ok, u may need to create different admin account

 

[wyliec2]

try to go to user account control settings, here u can disable administrator needs
otherwise if dism and sfc are all ok, u may need to create different admin account

I've done that - it just gives me the vertical bar with 4 levels of notification. I tried dropping it down to the bottom and no change.

try to go to user account control settings, here u can disable administrator needs
otherwise if dism and sfc are all ok, u may need to create different admin account

I also created another Administrator account and logged on as that but whenever you open a CMD window you need the Run as Administrator to be able to run but it's the rt-click "Run as" that's not working.

It almost seems like any dropdown list + right-click function isn't working since I can't open pinned Word or Excel documents....

 

[ex_bubblehead]

Have you recently installed anything that added items to the context menu? (WinZip for example)

If so then remove it/them. This is a known issue that seems to happen at random.

 

[wyliec2]

Have you recently installed anything that added items to the context menu? (WinZip for example)

If so then remove it/them. This is a known issue that seems to happen at random.

I haven't installed anything for sometime aside from Windows, McAfee and Malwarebytes updates. No new applications.

I'll try doing a Windows Repair/Recovery with Keep Files...

 

[wyliec2]

I did manage to get into CMD by booting in Safe Mode to command prompt.

SFC reported it fixed some corruption.

DISM didn't find any issues.

Rt-click problem still there....

 

[Colif]

Try a clean boot and see if it changes anything - make sure to read instructions and make sure NOT to disable any microsoft services or windows won't load right - https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/help/929135/how-to-perform-a-clean-boot-in-windows

if clean boot fixes it, it shows its likely a startup program. You should, over a number of startups. restart the programs you stopped to isolate the one that is to blame.

 

[hotaru.hino]

I haven't found any way to open a CMD or Powershell window as Administrator.

You can't open up Start Menu, find it with either the search bar or in the Programs menu, and either right clicking on it or selecting it with the cursor keys and pressing CTRL + Shift + Enter?

Because that's pretty much the only way to do it.

EDIT: Not sure if it will help, but if you have a Windows Install Media, you can try booting into that and going to the repair environment instead. It comes with a command prompt.

 

[Alabalcho]

Enable / set a password for Administrator user.
Open command prompt, then "runas /user:Administrator cmd.exe" (or any other .exe you need)

 

[wyliec2]

Thanks for all of the suggestions!!

It's really a goofy PITA issue - I really think something is hosed in Windows - first I was getting errors trying to update windows and I did a recovery which allowed the update to successfully complete but then this problem happened.

I'm going to try a 'refresh' but I'll have to go through the Media Creation process to get a media that is current to my installed version...

I suspect I'm headed for a wipe and reinstall of everything which is a major headache...

 

[Colif]

often clean is best place to start from.

Clean install is okay if you know you have to do it, and can make sure you saved everything you want to keep before reinstalling. If you only have 1 drive in PC, try using a cloud service to save any files you want to keep. When I installed win 10 on this PC I had all my data saved on Onedrive so I just needed to get it from there. Another good choice is have 2 hdd and copy everything you want o keep onto 2nd one and only have windows and applications that need to be reinstalled again on c.

When you know you have everything, even passwords. Its not so bad,

On another PC, download the Windows 10 media creation tool and use it to make a win 10 installer on USB

boot from installer

follow this guide: https://forums.tomshardware.com/faq/how-to-do-a-clean-installation-of-windows-10.3170366/