[SOLVED] UAC is almost completely broken

[PeterPrettyCool]

The function for right-clicking on a program to open up the menu and running it as an administrator is gone. Some programs can request permission to make changes to my device (and I can accept it), but I can't seem to run programs as administrator anymore through the right-click menu. Other programs, like VirtualBox, will just say that there is no app associated with it, which might be because they're trying to. I distinctly remember that I was messing around with the Registry Editor a few months ago to add a "Take Ownership" button to the menu on a tutorial I found on How-To Geek. I decided that it was useless, so I deleted the keys that I made. However, UAC is now completely broken for me. Opening up the User Account Control Settings and then attempting to change a setting there will result in the system making the Critical Stop error sound. I have tried making a new account, making it admin, removing admin from my usual account, and then adding admin back to my account to see if that would change anything, but it didn't. I'm completely lost on what to do. All tutorials and fixes I found online did not solve this, so I would appreciate any help.

 

[DSzymborski]

Without knowing all your registry changes, it's really hard to trace this backwards. I assume you didn't backup the registry before tinkering? And you've done a bunch of things since then which I don't know for sure.

While people can frequently be too quick to suggest it, with situations like this, where there has been some mystery, ill-conceived tinkering, I tend to recommend tearing off the bandage and do a full reinstall of Windows. This kind of tinkering should note be done with the registry properly backed up.