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I am signed in under an administrator account in my laptop; however, now vista is not allowing me to install / uninstall any software.

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We're definitely going to need more details than that in order to help you with your problem. What type of software are you trying to install/uninstall? How have you tried to install/uninstall it? etc. – Cody Gray Mar 10 '11 at 10:46
Thank you Cody for your quick response. I was able to install any software before. Now I tried Firefox. I am not able to run McAfee virus scan – Razack Mar 10 '11 at 10:55
One more symptom is even though connected to electric power some times it is showing as though running on Battery. – Razack Mar 10 '11 at 11:04
What happens (error messages, etc.) when you attempt to install software. Also, sounds like the power jack in your laptop has become disconnected from the board and needs to be resoldered, or your charger is bad. – ultrasawblade Mar 10 '11 at 13:16
@Razack Is the administrator account logged in as Administrator when you look at the account name? Or is it your name with Administrator privileges? – Thiago M. Mar 10 '11 at 20:02
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1 Answer

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Since you are running under your username with Admin privileges, Windows Vista does not really give you privileges to run stuff. To access the administrator account and install software and stuff you need to access the hidden "Administrator" account.

Go to the command prompt icon and right click and hit "Run as Administrator"

Type in the following command:

net user administrator /active:yes

Reboot your computer to apply the changes and you now have access to the real admin account.

To turn off this administrator account, run the same command but instead of yes, say no.

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Thanks: this works – Razack Jul 4 '11 at 6:45
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