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Missing Links or Access Denied in Central Admin – SharePoint 2010

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Started running across this scenario lately, and wanted to post something up as it will make you second guess your SharePoint configuration [and sanity].  I have SharePoint 2010 hosted on my Windows 7 laptop.  In my Favorites Bar in IE, I created a SP2010 folder, and in that folder, I add a favorite for Central Admin, and my SharePoint sites.  Gives me an easy way to hit the sites I’m after while working on my laptop.

When I open IE and click my Favorite for Central Admin, I find that some links are missing.  Clicking on some of the links that actually show up throw Access Denied messages, though others will work.  The main link that is missing that I associate with this scenario is “Manage Services on Server”under System Settings. The “Configure incoming e-mail Settings” link will also be missing on that page.

You get:
image

Expect this:
image

Also, most of the Farm Backup and Restore links will be missing.  Check out this screenshot.  The following links are missing:

  • Perform a Backup
  • Restore from a backup
  • Configure backup settings

You get:
image

Expect this:
image

To make matters worse, you likely set this up a few weeks ago, and can’t quite remember if those links were there to begin with :-)  If you’re like me, you think, “I must have messed something up. Let me run the configuration wizard, and see if that gets things going.”  If you do that, IE will launch after the wizard, and Central Admin will appear with all the links.  You go on your merry way, and do whatever you were planning on doing.  You come back a couple days later and the links are missing again.  This is where questioning your sanity comes into play :-)

I asked around, and found that the cause is a combination of the following:

  • Browsing from the server hosting Central Administration
  • UAC Enabled on the machine
  • Opening the browser without elevation
  • If you are browsing from a Windows Server hosting Central Admin, you also have IE Enhanced Security Configuration (ESC) to deal with as well. 

The fix is to either:

  • Launch Internet Explorer as Administrator (Right-click Internet Explorer, select “Run as Administrator”)
  • Browse Central Admin, by clicking the SharePoint 2010 Central Administration link in the Start menu.  This runs “psconfigui.exe –cmd showcentraladmin” which will force elevation.

I would think the majority of people that are going to hit this are developers working with SharePoint locally as most administrators will not be browsing directly from the server hosting Central Admin.  From looking around, it appears the same behavior is seen with SharePoint 2007:

https://msmvps.com/blogs/shane/archive/2008/12/17/windows-2008-not-playing-nice-with-central-admin.aspx

Comments

  • Anonymous
    August 09, 2010
    Thanks for this information! I got "Access denied" in CA with one of my administrator users, mainly when clicking links in the Application Management section. Starting CA using its proper start menu link remedied the problem! (Though it gives me a UAC prompt to elevate privileges, something I don't get using my other administrator account. Hmm...)

  • Anonymous
    November 22, 2010
    Hi, I have the same problem as you. Windows 7 with Sharepoint Foundation 2010. In my central admin site the same links are missing. Unfortunately your suggestions did not work for me. Obviously the reason lies in Windows 7 but there is something else to it other than elevation and enhanced security.

  • Anonymous
    December 14, 2010
    Thanks, exactly what I needed!

  • Anonymous
    December 22, 2010
    Thanks. You saved my lot of time.

  • Anonymous
    April 22, 2011
    Like Martin, I too am still missing some links no matter which approach I take at bringing up the management console. What a pain.

  • Anonymous
    July 13, 2011
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    December 09, 2011
    I also thought I was losing my mind.  Thanks for restoring my sanity!

  • Anonymous
    March 11, 2012
    Good day, hope you guys can help me, on the EMPDEV site i changed the EPMDEVadministrator to EPMDEVtshepo though i did not change any password, when i log into the epmdev site it gives me an error. it says Access Denied and tells me to sign in as a different user. please help a brother out

  • Anonymous
    April 03, 2012
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    April 03, 2012
    Nice find. Much appreciated :)

  • Anonymous
    May 21, 2012
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    August 22, 2012
    Thanks! Useful knowledge

  • Anonymous
    September 20, 2012
    Thanks this helped

  • Anonymous
    January 24, 2013
    Saved me!!!

  • Anonymous
    March 31, 2013
    Thanks. This helped.

  • Anonymous
    August 04, 2015
    Thank you so much. I disabled the UAC and that's how it worked for me. Once again, thanks a ton :)

  • Anonymous
    December 01, 2015
    Great post, old but still usefull. I had the same problem on my Sharepoint 2013. But none of this helped. In my case it was the AppPool user account that was wrong. Changed it to the farmadmin and voila it worked. ;)

  • Anonymous
    September 20, 2016
    The comment has been removed