Hey everyone! I'm facing an issue where I seem to have lost all admin rights on my laptop. Whenever I try to do something that needs those rights, I get a User Account Control (UAC) prompt saying, "to continue, enter an admin username and password." The option to continue doesn't even appear, and I can only click 'no'. This has become a real hassle, especially since I can't even start Windows Defender for scans anymore. My account is the only one on this laptop, so I'm not sure what's going on. Any advice on how to fix this?
2 Answers
If all else fails, you might need to consider reinstalling Windows. You could try wiping your drive and reinstalling from a USB disk if you can’t regain admin access any other way. Just make sure to back up your data first!
It sounds like a tough situation! You might want to check your user controls to confirm that your account is still a member of the Administrators group. If you can't access those settings, it may help to boot into safe mode and see if you can adjust the permissions there.
Considering it's the only account on the laptop, I would think it should still have admin rights. It’s odd that you can’t even change anything about it.
I can't even choose the reinstall option since it keeps asking for admin credentials. Should I be worried this could be malware?