Guest simonta Posted March 14, 2011 Report Share Posted March 14, 2011 Evening all! Just made a little discovery whilst helping someone out. Definitely worth the new post.... PC is Windows 7. Did the usual to install the driver but no matter what I tried, the device had the yellow exclamation mark and the error "the device cannot start". Tried all sorts, no go. Vista and Win7 run the device installer under "elevated privileges" but I wondered what would happen if I forced the installer to run as administrator. Here's what worked. 1. Click Start 2. Type "mmc" without the quotes 3. Right click mmc in the search results and choose Run as administrator. This starts the Microsoft Management Console as administrator 4. Click File->Add/remove snapin and choose Device Manager from the list 5. Select local computer. Click OK. Now update the driver and it worked! Haven't figured it out yet, maybe the ADB driver is a "funny" or this particular PC had some sort of local policy or security setting which prevented a non-admin user installing it but whatever, a useful fix methinks. Cheers Simon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest newbe5 Posted March 14, 2011 Report Share Posted March 14, 2011 Instead of launching the MMC separately, it also works if you hold shift, and right-click device manager in the control panel, you can launch as Administrator. But tbh I run with UAC turned off so this is never an issue :D I find that having a Ubuntu VHD or LiveCD around does wonders when completely stuck :( Zeb Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest trevor432990 Posted March 15, 2011 Report Share Posted March 15, 2011 Interesting but is there not a way in Vista/Win 7 to setup or grant a user 'administrator' rights so that whatever they do thereafter will be done at that privilege/access level in future? I assume that's why it works fine on XP because I think it normally grants the first user created on the PC 'admin' rights by default. :D If it is that simple then we can update the Modaco instructions to advise Vista/Win 7 users to ensure the right admin privilege is set at the start. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest vtsfan Posted March 15, 2011 Report Share Posted March 15, 2011 Interesting but is there not a way in Vista/Win 7 to setup or grant a user 'administrator' rights so that whatever they do thereafter will be done at that privilege/access level in future? I assume that's why it works fine on XP because I think it normally grants the first user created on the PC 'admin' rights by default. :D If it is that simple then we can update the Modaco instructions to advise Vista/Win 7 users to ensure the right admin privilege is set at the start. You can enable the “Hidden” admin account in Windows 7 Through a Elevated Command Prompt NOTE: This option can be used in all editions of Windows 7. If your Windows 7 uses another language than English, then you may need to translate the word administrator part of the commands below to your language to use instead. Open a elevated command prompt. (run the CMD box as admin) To Enable the Hidden Built-In Administrator Account In the elevated command prompt, type c:\windows\system32 net user administrator /active:yes and press Enter Close the elevated command prompt. Log off/on and you will now see the built-in Administrator account log on icon added to the log on screen. To Disable, its the same process, but at the CMD box, type C:\windows\system32 net user administrator /active:no and press Enter Close the elevated command prompt. Log off/on, and you will now see the built-in Administrator account log on icon removed from the log on screen. There's an excellent tutorial in a bit more depth HERE Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest trevor432990 Posted March 15, 2011 Report Share Posted March 15, 2011 @vtsfan Thanks for the detailed procedure which will hopefully help Win 7 users in future. Is this a permanent change once it's all been performed? Is it the same procedure for Vista do you know? :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest newbe5 Posted March 15, 2011 Report Share Posted March 15, 2011 This is all very lengthy guys? If your going to go to these lengths why dont you just turn off User Account Control? That will let you run as a normal admin on the machine circa Windows XP. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest trevor432990 Posted March 15, 2011 Report Share Posted March 15, 2011 This is all very lengthy guys? If your going to go to these lengths why dont you just turn off User Account Control? That will let you run as a normal admin on the machine circa Windows XP. Even better .... does that work with Vista too? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest vtsfan Posted March 15, 2011 Report Share Posted March 15, 2011 @vtsfan Thanks for the detailed procedure which will hopefully help Win 7 users in future. Is this a permanent change once it's all been performed? Is it the same procedure for Vista do you know? :D Trevor, Once you have enabled the Admin account, i believe you should be presented with the option to log into it every time you boot up, unless you actually carry out the second part of the procedure and turn it off. I've not actually done it myself :( , as i'm running WIN 7 PRO, which lets you up your permissions through the MSConfig command. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest trevor432990 Posted March 15, 2011 Report Share Posted March 15, 2011 This is all very lengthy guys? If your going to go to these lengths why dont you just turn off User Account Control? That will let you run as a normal admin on the machine circa Windows XP. Sounds good. Not a Win 7/ Vista user myself so any chance you can put some instructions together for those who are on turning UAC off please? Do you know if it would work on Vista too? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest newbe5 Posted March 15, 2011 Report Share Posted March 15, 2011 Sounds good. Not a Win 7/ Vista user myself so any chance you can put some instructions together for those who are on turning UAC off please? Do you know if it would work on Vista too? Yep, it will work on Vista too. Control Panel > User Accounts > Change User Account Control Settings || Move the slider down to "Never Notify" Might be in a slightly different place in Vista, but this will basically remove the need to elevate privileges for any actions on your PC. Obviously less secure but there you go :D newbe5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest trevor432990 Posted March 15, 2011 Report Share Posted March 15, 2011 Yep, it will work on Vista too. Control Panel > User Accounts > Change User Account Control Settings || Move the slider down to "Never Notify" Might be in a slightly different place in Vista, but this will basically remove the need to elevate privileges for any actions on your PC. Obviously less secure but there you go :( newbe5 Excellent. Seems very straight forward and if it helps overcome some of the issues on these operating systems then I'd recommend Paul puts these instructions into his ROM install guide (Pinned Topic) to avoid users getting stuck at the early stages. Now just hope he reads this post as he doesn't seem to answer PMs :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest simonta Posted March 15, 2011 Report Share Posted March 15, 2011 Dudes. Everyone bitched about Windows security/stability. So MS largely fixed it with Win7 and a major change was UAC, bust in Vista, sweet in 7. By turning it off, you're regressing 5 years. It's not difficult to work with, right click and run as admin or enter the admin password when prompted. I agree with enabling the admin account but only use it when needed with runas or temporarily switch user. Please don't log on as admin routinely, it's 50% of why Windows got a bad wrap. My tuppence.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest newbe5 Posted March 15, 2011 Report Share Posted March 15, 2011 (edited) Dudes. Everyone bitched about Windows security/stability. So MS largely fixed it with Win7 and a major change was UAC, bust in Vista, sweet in 7. By turning it off, you're regressing 5 years. It's not difficult to work with, right click and run as admin or enter the admin password when prompted. I agree with enabling the admin account but only use it when needed with runas or temporarily switch user. Please don't log on as admin routinely, it's 50% of why Windows got a bad wrap. My tuppence.... I agree with you in principal, although security wise UAC is by far not the only security improvement in Win7. Also, if you are a local administrator on the machine, enabling the ACTUAL admin account won't actually do anything for you, you won't gain anything from doing it, and in fact, that is also a big security flaw as this account is the first on that any intruder will try to exploit as it is a known account name (which is why most OEM's disable by default). However, I think you are right in the fact that people should easily be able to hold the SHIFT key on their keyboard, and Right-Click on icons, this will show you the (sometimes hidden) "Run as Administrator" options, which works perfectly well in basically all cases. If you are unsure about these options, and aren't confident enough in the use of the OS to control things manually, then turning UAC off might not be a great idea. For those of you who (like me) are very confident in the use of the OS and don't feel the need for UAC to be on, then you will already have known where this option was :D newbe5 Edit: you can use the shift-rightclick method on device manager in the control panel btw, which is what I originally said :( You don't have to open the MMC separately. Edited March 15, 2011 by newbe5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest simonta Posted March 15, 2011 Report Share Posted March 15, 2011 Yeh, you're right about the shift right click, always forget that little tinker. However, there is a BIG difference between a local user in the admin group and the "real" admin account. Try using both then doing "effective permissions" on the stuff buried down in system32...or Google. MS did a really good job of locking down 7 (last standing at most black hat events) and even restricted some stuff for the admin group that is not restricted on the builtin\administrator. PS. Happy for someone to take a crack at my machine - the admin account has a 128 character randomly generated password. You'll need a LOT of horsepower to dictionary that tinker! I've got an AES 256 bit encrypted password store which holds it and I copy/paste to runas when needed... PPS. OK, not so happy and you'd have to get through 3 firewalls first... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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