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You may need to reset the registry and file permissions if you experience Access is denied error when installing a Windows XP Service Pack or update. (Example: Service Pack 3 setup error. Access is denied.)
Note: Access denied errors can also be caused by third-party applications, especially anti-virus or anti-spyware applications. So, make sure that you close all the anti-virus and anti-spyware utilities temporarily and then install the Service Pack. This helps in most cases. You should reset the registry and the file permissions only if necessary.
Resetting the Registry and the File Permissions
Using SECEDIT.EXE in Windows XP Professional
In Windows XP Professional, you may use the following secedit command-line to reset the file and registry permissions to defaults.
For more information, see article How to reset security settings back to the defaults.
Using SubInACL
For Windows XP Home Edition (and Professional Edition), you may use the SubInACL tool to reset the registry and file permissions. Download and then install the Subinacl.exe (~370 KB) from Microsoft. SubInACL is a command-line tool that enables administrators to obtain security information about files, registry keys, etc.
Open Notepad, copy the commands below and save the file as reset.cmd. Double-click the file to run it. This script file may take a long time to run. Registry and file permissions in your system should be reset.
subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE /grant=administrators=f
subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_CURRENT_USER /grant=administrators=f
subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT /grant=administrators=f
subinacl /subdirectories %SystemDrive% /grant=administrators=f
subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE /grant=system=f
subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_CURRENT_USER /grant=system=f
subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT /grant=system=f
subinacl /subdirectories %SystemDrive% /grant=system=f
Note: If you’re seeing the error Service Pack 3 setup error. Access is denied when installing Windows XP Service Pack 3, to verify if the error is caused by incorrect registry permissions, open the file C:\Windows\Svcpack.log using Notepad and look for the text Access is denied or DoRegistryUpdates failed.
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Thanks SKILLET that worked nicely…I changed the top line of the copy and pasted reset.cmd file and saved it…closed out of it and double clicked on the reset file on my desktop and it ran!
Skillet – thank you thank you thank you!! reset cmd is now running like mad with the change to the first line of the file. Hopefully I’ll now be able to load SP3. I had a hard drive failure and am starting from scratch – getting “access denied” has been VERY frustrating!