My home PC that thinks it's part of larger network

[Bill D]

Hi all:

When trying to assert control over various security features of my Vista
Home Premium PC, I often get a message saying the "Some settings are managed
by you system administrator".

"Googling" that message has led me to believe that a change executed from
the Group Policy feature would be needed to undo this setting.

Background: The PC is exclusively used at my home. It was built by a local
builder who does the bulk of its business with corporations and institutions
which may account for the presence of some of these "corporate type"
settings. Through registry changes, use of the hidden Administrator
account etc., etc., I've been able to reverse most of the settings that were
"wired in" on delivery. The machine had even contained a password which the
builder claims was not set by them.

This "system administrator" message is the last of the settings that I'm
trying to reverse. BTW, I tried looking for GPEDIT.EXE on my system but it
apparently is only to be found on the Professional version of Vista.

Does anyone have any clues as to how to undo this "system administrator"
setting this?

Thanks

Bill

[Florian Frommherz [MVP]]

Howdie!

Bill D schrieb:

> This "system administrator" message is the last of the settings that I'm
> trying to reverse. BTW, I tried looking for GPEDIT.EXE on my system but
> it apparently is only to be found on the Professional version of Vista.

It's actually gpedit.msc - but that would only enable you to make
configuration changes to that machine. A better approach would be using
rsop.msc - rsop.msc lists all Group Policy settings that are in effect
on this machine - if any. That should give you a clue what's behind it all.

> Does anyone have any clues as to how to undo this "system administrator"
> setting this?

So what is this error message exactly? Where does it pop up? Which
action causes such an error message?

cheers,

Florian
--
Microsoft MVP - Windows Server - Group Policy.
eMail: prename [at] frickelsoft [dot] net.
blog: http://www.frickelsoft.net/blog.

[Bill D]

Thanks for responding. See below.

"Florian Frommherz [MVP]" <flo...@PLEASELEAVETHISOUT.frickelsoft.net> wrote
in message news:Os2tditV...@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...

When I go into Windows Update| Change Settings, the heading says "Choose how
Windows can install updates" but the option to select "Never check for
updates is greyed out". The information line in yellow says "Some settings
are managed by your system administrator".

Thanks

Bill

[Florian Frommherz [MVP]]

Howdie!

Bill D schrieb:

> When I go into Windows Update| Change Settings, the heading says "Choose
> how Windows can install updates" but the option to select "Never check
> for updates is greyed out". The information line in yellow says "Some
> settings are managed by your system administrator".

Then go about rsop.msc and see what it comes up with. If it is a policy,
we'll notice that.

[Bill D]

Florian:

Thanks for your help.

Unfortunately, RSOP.MSC is not on my system. I also checked SERVICES.MSC
and it's not listed among the available services.

Using Google, I've determined that this service is not to be found on XP
home. I'll assume that it's also not part of Vista Home.

Later on today, I'm going to research Registry Keys that used to control the
Windows Update behavior.

Bill

"Florian Frommherz [MVP]" <flo...@PLEASELEAVETHISOUT.frickelsoft.net> wrote

in message news:OmRR1C0V...@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...

[Florian Frommherz [MVP]]

Howdie!

Bill D schrieb:

> Using Google, I've determined that this service is not to be found on XP
> home. I'll assume that it's also not part of Vista Home.
>
> Later on today, I'm going to research Registry Keys that used to control
> the Windows Update behavior.

I'm sorry for this, Bill. I was under the impression that you were
running the Premium version of Vista (/Professional of Windows XP). I
currently have no clue what you could do except for trying to "hack" the
settings from the registry.

[Bill D]

Florian:

Thanks for your help.

I managed to find the Registry hack to fix it. Here it is:

Using REGEDIT.EXE, navigate to this location

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Policies \ Microsoft \ Windows \
WindowsUpdate \ AU
In the right-pane, delete the two values AUOptions and NoAutoUpdate

Then navigate to this location:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \
Policies \ WindowsUpdate
In the right-pane, delete the value DisableWindowsUpdateAccess

In my case there was no HKCU to change.

It worked.

Cheers,

Bill

"Florian Frommherz [MVP]" <flo...@PLEASELEAVETHISOUT.frickelsoft.net> wrote

in message news:OfgyEi2V...@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...

[Florian Frommherz [MVP]]

Howdie Bill,

Bill D schrieb:

> Then navigate to this location:
>
> HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \
> Policies \ WindowsUpdate
> In the right-pane, delete the value DisableWindowsUpdateAccess
>
> In my case there was no HKCU to change.
>
> It worked.

Thanks for the feedback. I'm glad you got it working. Seems like the
local builder messed the thing more up than everyone (including
themselves) knew.