Lost Administrator Rights in Windows 10/11? Recover the Account via Windows RE

UAC Yes Button Missing

Summary: This article tells you how to restore your user account’s lost administrator rights and privileges in Windows 10 and 11.

This article discusses the “lost administrator rights” issue caused by tampered user account group membership. Like the ‘lost password’ scenario, losing your account’s administrator rights & privileges is an awkward lock-out situation where the user can’t run anything that requires elevation.

If your user account has lost admin rights, it may have been caused by malware. Or you may have inadvertently set yourself a “Standard User” via Account settings or incorrectly configured the Local Security Policy or user account group membership.

This means you can’t go back to the User Account settings page and set yourself as administrator. In such cases, the Yes button in the UAC dialog will be missing or grayed out.

UAC Yes Button Missing

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Restore Missing Media Feature Pack/WMP in Windows 10 and 11

spring creators update error 0x800F081E wmp

After buying a brand new Windows 10 or 11 computer, double-clicking a video file opens it in Films & TV (or Movies & TV), and the Windows Media Player shortcut is nowhere to be seen. This makes one wonder if Windows Media Player has been removed in Windows 10 and 11. Windows Media Player very much exists in Windows 10 and Windows 11.Read more

How to Set User Environment Variable Using Setx

Command Prompt

You probably know how to add or remove environment variables using GUI in Windows. It can be done by launching sysdm.cpl → Advanced → Environment Variables. Alternatively, one can run the following command in the Run dialog to launch the Environment Variables dialog directly: rundll32 sysdm.cpl,EditEnvironmentVariables (To set per-system environment variables, the above command needs … Read more

Restore Missing “Pin to Taskbar” Option in Windows 10/11

Summary: “Pin to Taskbar” option is missing when you right-click on a .exe file or its shortcut on a Windows 10 or Windows 11 computer. The issue occurs due to the Taskbar policies applied on the computer using the local group policy editor or the registry. For example, TaskbarNoPinnedList Policy is one such policy that hides the “Pin to Taskbar” context menu option.Read more

Folders Refresh Automatically If Desktop Slideshow and Accent Color are Enabled

If you’re noticing a problem where folder contents automatically refresh at specific intervals in Windows 10/11, this is due to the combination of the two settings, Desktop Background Slideshow (or Windows Spotlight) and “Automatically pick an accent color”.

When both options are enabled, the Windows Shell sends the refresh message to all the windows every time the wallpaper changes. This causes folders to refresh the views. The automatic folder refresh would be annoying, especially if you’re scrolling through a folder containing too many files, and after a refresh, the scroll bar moves right back to the top.Read more

Quick Access/Home View Incorrect – Frequent Folders & Recent Files Are Grouped Together

quick access "home" view incorrect - grouped together

By default, the Frequent Folders and Recent Files are grouped separately in the Quick Access (now known as “Home”) folder. Occasionally, on some systems, the Quick access view may appear incorrectly (e.g., the Frequent Folders and Recent Files items get mixed up and show under a single category) due to folder views corruption.Read more