every .exe I execute is saying "Access is Denied."

[keak]

HI there,

My cmd.exe has been working fine up till now and I just have this weird issue show up from now where.

Basically, whatever .exe file I execute from the command prompt, I get a "Access is denied." error.

so for example, I have putty.exe in my C:\
When I try to execute this, I get the following msg

C:\putty.exe
Access is denied.

has anyone have experience with this issue?

Any help will be greatly appreciated !

 

[linney]

Are you an Administrator user?

Is your username listed as such (Administrator) in the compmgmt.msc (via Start Run) in Groups and Users?

How To Reset Security Settings Back to the Defaults

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=313222#1

HOW TO: Take Ownership of a File or Folder in Windows XP (Q308421)

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q308/4/21.asp

Error Message: "Access Is Denied" When You Try to Open NTFS File System Folders

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;Q823306#appliesto

 

[keak]

Hi there linney,
I checked control panel -> users and I am listed as the admin user. I only have this user and a guest user on this xp installation.

However, if I execute "user" from C:\WINDOWS\system32\cmd.exe I am getting the following

C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator>user
Access is denied.

I am lost as some of the CD and DIR commands works, but when I try to execute any other commands like putty.exe or USER, I get this access denied error ....

 

[Turkbear]

Hi,
Probably time for a good virus and trojan scan...Many malware programs disable access to stuff...





To Paraphrase:"The Help you get is proportional to the Help you give.."

 

[keak]

Thanks for pointing that out,
yeah, I had a feeling it was a malware too and used AVG8 ... also have spyware doctor running.

I tried sophos' rootkit scanner too but that seems to use cmd.exe and gave the access is denied error.

I am trying to download a fresh copy of cmd.exe and see if that helps at all.

thank you for the input there !

 

[keak]

I found something really strange.
I copied cmd.exe from my C:/WINDOWS/system32/cmd.exe over to my desktop and opened it there.

In this window I typed in

C:\putty.exe

and putty came up fine ....

It only looks like I get the "access is denied." message when I execute cmd.exe in the system32 folder.


Are there any possibly resolution for this that anyone may know of? Its a first for me !!

 

[linney]

What is life like from Safe Mode, can your username or the Built Administrator open .exe files? Incidentally, files that have CD or DIR commands performed on them are only being Read, not Modified or Executed etc.

If things are brighter in Safe Mode, try Normal Mode with a newly created Admin User, if you can create one via your current user, or try the Built-In Admin to do it, see how the new Admin behaves if you get one created?

If it is that your current user is corrupted beyond all hope, this is handy to know.

811151 - How to Copy User Data to a New User Profile


Some general things to try.

See if System Restore will get you back to a restore point before your problem with Explorer.

Try Safe Mode (Do you have this problem in Safe Mode?).

Try running ChkDsk to check your drive for errors. Right-click your Drive icon/ Properties/ Tools/ Error Checking. Select both boxes.

Run the System File Checker program from the Run Box by typing.....Sfc /Scannow in it and have your XP CD handy.





If they don't work you could try repairing windows by running it over itself. You will lose all your windows updates but your files will be untouched. You should be able to do this as you only have to boot from the XP CD rather than running as a user in your broken Windows.

How to Perform an In-Place Upgrade (Reinstallation) of Windows XP (Q315341)

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q315/3/41.asp

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=811151

 

[keak]

Thank you linney for the detailed steps,
I haven't tried safemode yet, I'll give that a try.

For some reason, cmd.exe seems to work fine when I copy it over to my desktop and execute commands from there.

Good point about the dir and cd commands ... it does look like cmd.exe doesn't have execute rights for the programs when run from the system32 folder ... definitely something is going wrong there.

Worse case, I'll have to revert my system to a restoration point. I tried the chkDsk (with the two checkbox checked) and there doesn't seem to be an issue there.

thanks!
keak

 

[GrimR]

How are your environment variables. check your comspec = C:\WINDOWS\system32\cmd.exe
e.g. what if you Start -> Run %comspec%

 

[CecilXavier]

Try making a different user. See if you can run stuff from the other user.

 

[linney]

Can you run other programs in the System32 folder, such as Task Manager? If not have a look at the File Access Permissions for both the Windows and System32 folder.