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Offline hmed2390

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Huge problem
« on: March 12, 2011, 09:32:16 PM »
Hey guys, ok, so after hours of installing windows 7 from new, installing apps upon apps, and tweaking windows 7 to our liking, my sister decides to set restrictions on other users and fiddles with the gpedit.msc option. She enables, and then decides to allow acces to only firefox.exe , then after rebooting she finds out that the change affecting all accounts including her admin account. Now she can't access gpedit or anything other than firefox and is pretty much poo out of luck. I tried emailing this registry to her but she can't even run it either:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Group Policy Objects\LocalUser\Software\Policies\Microsoft\MMC]

[-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Group Policy Objects\LocalUser\Software\Policies\Microsoft\MMC\{8FC0B734-A0E1-11D1-A7D3-0000F87571E3}]
"Restrict_Run"=dword:00000000

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\MMC]

[-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\MMC\{8FC0B734-A0E1-11D1-A7D3-0000F87571E3}]
"Restrict_Run"=dword:00000000

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\MMC]
"RestrictToPermittedSnapins"=dword:00000000

So what now? There MUST be a way around this, anybody have anything to add? Thanks in advance. This has been a hell of a night, any help would be very appreciated.
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Offline dweez

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Re: Huge problem
« Reply #1 on: March 12, 2011, 10:05:04 PM »
I'm checking some things out but in the mean time, does she happen to have any restore points from a time before she made the changes?
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Offline hmed2390

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Re: Huge problem
« Reply #2 on: March 12, 2011, 10:13:16 PM »
nope, this is literally a first boot minus the relevant reboots for installing her adobe cs5 suite.

we were planning to schedule a restore point after everything was up and running but we made the stupid
mistake of screwing things up in the process.

thanks dweez, i really appreciate it. we can't even edit the registry , access the registry, or run script.
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Offline hmed2390

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Re: Huge problem
« Reply #3 on: March 12, 2011, 10:42:39 PM »
hey Dweez no worries, we're doing another clean install lmao, but thanks for the help, I really appreciate it.
We couldn't find a suitable solution. 
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Offline dweez

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Re: Huge problem
« Reply #4 on: March 12, 2011, 11:45:36 PM »
Yeah, I found a lot of "similar" situations but all the solutions were very low-level, "dirty hands" type work.  I suggest creating a Restore Point of the C: drive immediately after the finished install.  This makes recovery a bit easier.

Good luck man.
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Offline hmed2390

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Re: Huge problem
« Reply #5 on: March 12, 2011, 11:55:43 PM »
yeah, it seemed like less pain to just do it all over again rather than run around ourselves in a circle trying to figure this thing out. Thanks again Dweez, much appreciated.  8)
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Offline smokester

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Re: Huge problem
« Reply #6 on: March 13, 2011, 04:26:21 AM »
As christ is not here, let me the first to say:

Spoiler (hover to show)

even though I currently also use windows of various varieties.
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Offline dweez

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Re: Huge problem
« Reply #7 on: March 13, 2011, 01:25:19 PM »
I run Windows 7 on this box but have a VM of Ubuntu 10.10 and OS X 10.6.6 so I've got all my bases covered.
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Offline dweez

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Re: Huge problem
« Reply #8 on: March 13, 2011, 02:23:15 PM »
In my searching, even in safe mode, sometimes the registry and/or gpedit.msc was still locked from the admin.  I think it was a matter of either resetting some NTFS ACLs (permissions lists) or disabling the group policy service, which also had access blocked in some cases where people had locked themselves out.
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Offline hmed2390

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Re: Huge problem
« Reply #9 on: March 13, 2011, 03:29:54 PM »
Quote from: christ on March 13, 2011, 02:16:27 PM
Safe mode should help.

Nope, it didn't. I tried it all.
But thanks though.  8)

Quote from: dweez on March 13, 2011, 02:23:15 PM
In my searching, even in safe mode, sometimes the registry and/or gpedit.msc was still locked from the admin.  I think it was a matter of either resetting some NTFS ACLs (permissions lists) or disabling the group policy service, which also had access blocked in some cases where people had locked themselves out.

that was exactly the case, there was literally no other option other than starting new again. We had no idea that the changes would affect all of the accounts including the admin one. Pretty stupid in my opinion. I've seen fixes where people would use the registry using what I posted above to get out of this mess in windows xp but it wouldn't work with windows 7 ultimate. So i dunno, i'd still like to know the fix for future knowledge and so i can document it and share it with everybody else who might make the same mistake someday.

Quote from: smokester on March 13, 2011, 04:26:21 AM
As christ is not here, let me the first to say:

Spoiler (hover to show)

even though I currently also use windows of various varieties.

I personally don't hate Mac's (I do hate apple as a company though) and I think it's just a matter of preference , and in my case, a matter of what I grew up with. I've tried to switch over to linux and I've tested out many different flavors and by far I've observed it as being a much smoother and stable OS than Windows, however I feel so restricted and limited in terms of what i can do and what I'm used to. For instance, if I want the to play the newest pc game linux falls short and unless it's a really popular or highly anticipated title Mac isn't going to deliver either. Then software, sure there are lots of alternative, but when I google around looking for a certain piece of software tailored to a specific need more than likely it's going to be geared towards windows. I mean there is a reason Windows owns most of the OS market share but aside from that the fact is that it does own most of the OS market share so everyday computing needs is going to take that into consideration. That's why more times than not if unless you're an exclusive Mac user you're going to be dual booting between windows and linux or freebsd or whatever other Unix-like variant.

So i dunno, feel free to debate.  :P
« Last Edit: March 13, 2011, 03:42:19 PM by hmed2390 »
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Offline smokester

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Re: Huge problem
« Reply #10 on: March 13, 2011, 03:59:34 PM »

Quote from: hmed2390 on March 12, 2011, 09:32:16 PM
....I tried emailing this registry to her but she can't even run it either....

I have never tried it with Win 7, but quite often I have edited the registry without booting, using Ultimate boot CD (Hirens may also have a registry editor?).  I don't know if you'd be able to load the registry hive, but if you could you should be able to add those edits easily enough, which might get you control back to undo the gpedit.msc changes.

That is certainly a way it could have been approached, and maybe I'll intention bork an W7U installation on an old machine to try it out.

or.. maybe not :)
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Offline hmed2390

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Re: Huge problem
« Reply #11 on: March 13, 2011, 04:06:19 PM »
perhaps you should try it.  ;)
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Offline smokester

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Re: Huge problem
« Reply #12 on: March 13, 2011, 04:15:48 PM »

If it didn't work I have found that the 'Win 7 Recovery environment' actually allows you to load the registry hive and edit it. If the edits you first posted would have fixed the problem, then using this method should have fixed it.

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Offline hmed2390

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Re: Huge problem
« Reply #13 on: March 13, 2011, 04:22:03 PM »
Thanks Smokes, good to know for the future.  8)
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Offline smokester

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Re: Huge problem
« Reply #14 on: March 13, 2011, 04:27:02 PM »

Quote from: hmed2390 on March 13, 2011, 04:22:03 PM
Thanks Smokes, good to know for the future.  8)

Let's hope you never need it Hmed. 

Chances are tho'...
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Don't put off until tomorrow, what you can put off until the day after.

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