i recently installed vista on my laptop!
all went ok! apart from 2 problems really.

I cant edit any system files even tho i am the admin!( i require permission to open this file, and i need it from trusted installer!!) i can do much with vista mod wise!!

also when i go to dial a vpn connection that i have saved vista blue screens!!! no idea wat thats all about
but not a great start to vista reallly!!!

cheers guys

first issues
even though you are an Admin, it does not mean that you have full permissions to the Box, if you need to edit something System wise, go ahead and enable and password the Administrator account. with this you can edit what you need.

second issue,
what VPN client are you using? cisco? att? built in windows? have you verified that the software is compatiable with Vista. Most VPN clients will need an update before they will work with vista.

see if this works for you:

1. Log in on your actual 'Administrator' account (not a user with admin privilages). Before we continue with the below lets open up 'Adminstrative Tools' in the control panel and make sure the user you want to normally log in on is in the 'Administrators' group.

2. Open up explorer and right click on the 'C:\" drive and coose 'Properties' then click on the 'Security' tab.

3. then click on the 'Advanced' button, on the GUI that comes up click on the 'Owner' tab.

4. Change the current owner to 'Administrators' (not 'Administrator' - not the 's') you will be changing the owner to the 'Administrators' group (not the user 'Administrator').

See if gaining control of the whole 'C:\' drive helps you out.

You can try gaining the true 'root', i.e. the local system account.

I don't know if this will work for Vista, but it works for XP.

Open a command prompt and type


Where xx:xx is some time a few minutes from now. Wait a few minutes and see if a command prompt comes up. If it does, you've got root account and should be able to do anything you like.

It doesn't work in Vista, because Vista users no longer log into session 0 (the session a console user logs into in XP, shared by the SYSTEM account). Therefore, the window will open, but you will not be able to see or interact with it at all (without some serious hacking with the debugger). An easier way to do this is to download psexec and run "psexec -s cmd". That'll give you a SYSTEM account cmd prompt - note that you obviously operate a SYSTEM-level cmd prompt at your own risk, so be careful.

Well, I login as SYSTEM all the time (i.e. that's the user account I use) and haven't experienced any problems... you just have to be the usual careful with what you do.

You actually log in as the SYSTEM or as a user named 'SYSTEM'???

You can indeed create a user called SYSTEM, and you can even give it a full access token, but the SID won't match the Local System account's SID, so it's not a true SYSTEM account. Again, use an elevated command prompt (if UAC is enabled) and run psexec -s cmd to get a SYSTEM command prompt, but be very careful - anything you run from there runs with the creds of the Local SYSTEM account.

Offtopic, but yes, the real SYSTEM account with real SID 1-5-18.

so can i have a quick
step
1.
2.
3.

Please guys would be great

Its eaisier just to log in as the Administrator and add your normal user account with full permissions for the entire drive. That way you don't mess with the 'Trusted Installer' thing (and just what is that doing there any way?) and gain full control over the drive.

How do you log in with an actual and real SYSTEM account that uses the actual system SID, and not just a user named SYSTEM (or an administrator type account)?

The only problem is i am loged in as administrator!!!

@Spooky: Via some rather convoluted editing of the SAM keys in the registry. This was done over a year ago and I haven't reinstalled since, so I don't remember the exact procedure. Would need to figure it out again if I had to reinstall though...

I saw this here on another forum. Also, is in Microsoft's website here http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?...kb;EN-US;929833

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1. At an elevated command prompt, type the following command, and then press ENTER:
takeown /f Path_And_File_Name
For example, type takeown /f E:\windows\system32\jscript.dll.
2. Type the following command, and then press ENTER to grant administrators full access to the file:
icacls Path_And_File_Name /GRANT ADMINISTRATORS:F
For example, type icacls E:\windows\system32\jscript.dll /grant administrators:F.
3. Type the following command to replace the file with a known good copy of the file:
Copy Path_And_File_Name_Of_Source_File Path_And_File_Name_Of_Destination
For example, type copy E:\temp\jscript.dll E:\windows\system32\jscript.dll.
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It worked for me

hey idk if you ever actually fixed this but i think your problem is your still using your standard user account. Note: your "administrator" rights on your user account does not make it a admin account. Vista does not by default have an actual full admin account active. In order to activate it you must go into an elevated command prompt (right click run as admin) then type "net user administrator /active:yes" once this is done log out and you should see an account to log into called "Administrator". Once logged into that account you shouldn't have any problems. hopefully that helps if not i'd try sending a really angry mean email to Microsoft cc the email to a news station and they'll basically bend over for ya lol