How to fix Windows 10 Home Edition corrupted Permissions for System and Administrators accounts

Question

I first tried to repair and then reinstalled Windows 10 Home Edition twice starting from reformatting the system partition "C:" but every time after the first update I noticed that different numbers of Services have a code appended to their name indicating that something is wrong.

The service McpManagerService always generates the error code 1500. This is because of not having access to the mui language files.

On further examinations I found out that on many essential system folders and files, the System and Administrators accounts don't have any permissions, for example on the folder C:\Windows\System32\ the security tab on properties of the folder the two accounts have no rights. Furthermore, it not possible to change them either.

The situation is very much like in this case https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/windows-11-access-permissions-problems/ccda86ac-64b4-49ae-b62b-e1ccf844fa19

The relevant difference are

1. This is Windows 10 Home Edition
2. The same thing happens every time on installing Windows.

I have run chkdsk on C:\ and hardware diagnostic but to no avail.

I ran Windows Update troubleshooter too. Then I used a third part tool called SetAcl Studio. The permission shown in that tool are different to those shown in folder properties and the interface allows you to change them.

The bootup and this tool must be reading the permission from different sources, but I don't know which.

I tried to run icacls command as suggested in the above link, but it failed on most files and folders. This could be because the Administrators group don't have adequate rights in the first place.

The only other solution I can think of is

1. to enable the inbuilt administrator and login to Windows as the inbuilt administrator and then run cacls /reset.
2. The other option it to use a user id like "S-?-??-..". But I don't know which on to choose and how to use user id in this context.

I need a user that has total control. The take possession of all C:\ files and folders and then run cacls "C:" /reset. Will that reset the owner as well. This needs to be done carefully and in the right order. I certainly don't want to go through another instal.

Therefore:
1- Can someone explain to me why this is happening given that I have installed Windows from scratch several times and I get exactly the same error?
2- Will the inbuilt administrator be able to reset the permission?
3- Is this unique to Home Edition and would upgrading help?

Any other suggestion would also be welcome.

Answer 1

Hi,

Are you certain that you formatted and reinstalled the operating system disk? Typically, reinstalling the OS does not lead to permission issues.

Should you face such permission problems, consider setting the ownership at the root directory level, as permissions will cascade to the subdirectories.

Answer 2

Hi,

Let's clarify something first:

1, what's the direct impact of the problem you stated above, for example, a specific service fails to run? And this service impact our routing job

you mentioned "always generates the error code 1500", where did you see the error code? in the event viewer or just the service properties windows, for example, <Failed to Read Description. Error Code: 15100>

Are there any screenshots available? Picture may contain more information for troubleshooting.

2, you mentioned you have formatted the system partition, could you run the "systeminfo" command and post a screenshot for the output?

Regards,

Alex

Answer 3

On my Win11 Home laptop I also see the 15100 error. But it does display the Display Name value which it also pulls from the dll. I would need to do more research on that, but I think that the explanation is that the -101 ordinal is not registered in the dll. (I believe that is the correct terminology.)

I would think that you can just ignore that. It looks to be a minor oversight.

To set a service to run as the system account, you would set it here.

The services that have "_nnnnn" appended to them are "per user" services.

https://www.askwoody.com/forums/topic/services-with-a-random-5-digit-code-attached/

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/application-management/per-user-services-in-windows

If you used takeown and icacls to reset the permissions on the entire C: drive, then I would think that is going to cause more problems in the long run. I would recommend that you do not do that.

Answer 4

You need a Server version of Windows to run a DNS server service.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/networking/dns/quickstart-install-configure-dns-server

The DNS Client service is used to resolve DNS domain names, by querying locally cached information obtained from a previous query or by querying a remote DNS server.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/customize/desktop/unattend/microsoft-windows-dns-client

E.g. DNS service doesn't register anything, it is empty.

Huh?

"Ipconfig /displaydns" will display the cached names and addresses.

On my home network, I have a wifi router at 192.168.1.1. It serves as the DHCP/DNS server. When any of my pc's boot they get an address from the router and their name is registered with it. The router calls external DNS servers to resolve names on the internet.

c:\ipconfig /all 
Wireless LAN adapter Wi-Fi:
   Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . : home
   Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Intel(R) Wi-Fi 6 AX201 160MHz
   DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
   Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
   IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.8(Preferred) 
   Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
   Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : Thursday, August 22, 2024 8:22:14 PM
   Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : Saturday, August 24, 2024 7:23:30 AM
   Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1
   DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1
   DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1
   NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled

I manually edited the hosts file to override DNS to block certain names that I found my pc accessing, and also to test stuff out. Administrators have full control.

PS C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc> icacls .\hosts
.\hosts NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM:(I)(F)
        BUILTIN\Administrators:(I)(F)
        BUILTIN\Users:(I)(RX)
        APPLICATION PACKAGE AUTHORITY\ALL APPLICATION PACKAGES:(I)(RX)
        APPLICATION PACKAGE AUTHORITY\ALL RESTRICTED APPLICATION PACKAGES:(I)(RX)

If I needed to manually create an entry, I would use the routers web interface to do that.

I would expect your router to have similar functionality.

I was trying to setup a routing table to maintain routing between wi-fi devices and Ethernet devices.

Are the ethernet devices plugged into your pc or the router? If they are plugged into your PC, then you could manually add an entry into the hosts file and use the "route add" command to define the network route over to the ethernet adapter and not use the wifi adapter.

https://www.bing.com/search?q=how%20to%20use%20the%20windows%20%22route%20add%22%20command

Answer 5

As I started this thread, I guess I have to finish it as I found the solution to the problem myself.
The fundamental problem is that in Windows the Administrator is no long an Administrator because Microsoft has decided that.

I don't agree with MotoX80 whose judgment seems to have been biased by how popular he is as a troubleshooter.

I think Windows XP was the closest Microsoft got to a descent Operating system, still manageable general computing. Now we have developers' mode that I haven't looked into.

Humans are irrational but computer need not to be. If you can't rely on logic of a computing system then you have nothing else to rely on. Administrator is called an administrator for a reason. If Microsoft thinks no one should have total access, then they should find another term and drop the Administrator account. TrustedInstaller is really the administrator now which is why it doesn't reside in the system. Network Group is no longer there either.
It is like political correctness suddenly jumping at your throat and saying you can't use words that were thought to have distinct meaning, because no they are meaningless. These LLM based AIs are the example of how language on its own is not sufficient and endup having linguistic hallucination.
I heard one of these fathers of AI saying that LLM AIs can develop understanding. I think that is linguistic hallucination as well. Language was invented and if AI's it exists in abstraction that language made possible, but it would be silly to mistake abstraction for material existence. What we share are the physical laws. Language tends to cause divergence sometimes deliberately and other times organically. We discovered rationality rather than inventing it. This is why it is far more cohesive in how we interpret out world.

Windows is for corporates. There has to be a server on the Network. I had to learn Windows, in order to get a job. Otherwise, no one sane would adopt Windows as a personal computing platform. I did try Apple, but the Mac used to breakdown even more than Windows at the time. The other thing about apple is their control freak attitude that has now got to Windows as well. I still don't understand why mac is so popular. Once I took my sister's old model iPhone. It is terrible, you feel caged. In the end I had to jail break it but it still didn't provide any flexibility. Most of my friends use Mac. I think it is for people who when it comes to computing they have no curiosity or imagination. They never ask, I wonder if you can do this or that. I wish Linux had come out earlier and someone would have made Windows like interface. Then you could develop and manage in Linux for Windows. But that took a long time to come about. But, I am going back to Linux, I thought Windows 11 would be modular and make sense but no, nothing has changed from what I can see. Life is too short to keep banging your head against the wall. It has to make sense logically and Windows doesn't.