Some users are facing a weird problem wherein the “Yes” button in User Account Control (UAC) dialog is disabled or grayed out. As a result, you’ll be unable to launch any program under elevated privileges (run as administrator).
Cause
This problem can occur if your user account group membership is messed up and your account no longer has admin rights. This situation occurs when you’ve inadvertently set your user account as a standard user or Guest, especially if there is no other administrator account in the system. And, with the built-in “Administrator” account disabled by default, you may be wondering how to fix the UAC or user account privileges problem.
If you run the net user %username%
command, it may show the following output, indicating that you’re not a member of the Administrator’s group.
Local Group Memberships *Guests (or) Local Group Memberships *Users
RELATED: [Fix] UAC asks for a password even if logged in as an administrator
Resolution
If your user account has turned into a standard or Guest account (by incorrect group membership change), you’ll be unable to run any program elevated. The Yes button in the User Account Control (UAC) dialog will be missing.
To restore administrative rights and privileges for the user account, follow the steps below:
Method 1: Use Safe mode to log in as built-in Administrator
Log in to the built-in Administrator account via Safe Mode and then promote your user account back as administrator. The built-in administrator account has a blank password by default.
The built-in “Administrator” account shows up on the login screen while in Safe Mode if no other administrator account user exists on the computer; it doesn’t matter whether the “Administrator” account enabled or not.
- Click Start, click on the Power button, press and hold the Shift key down and click Restart. This starts the Windows Recovery Environment.
- In Windows RE, click Troubleshoot → Advanced options → Startup Settings.
- In Startup Settings, press the 4 or F4 button on your keyboard.
- Windows 10 will now restart in Safe Mode. In Safe Mode, you’ll see the “Administrator” account in the login screen.
- Click “Administrator” and sign in to the account. It has a blank password by default.
- Press Win + R, type
control userpasswords
, and click OK. This opens the classic User Accounts Control Panel. - In the User Accounts applet, click “Manage another account“.
- In the “Manage Accounts” applet, select the account that has lost its admin privileges.
- Click “Change the account type”.
- Choose the “Administrator” option, and click the “Change Account Type” button.
You’ve now changed your account type to administrator. - Restart Windows and login to your account. The UAC Yes button should now be restored.
That’s it. The above steps restore your user account’s administrator privileges.
Alternate method: Using Command-line
You can also accomplish the above task of fixing your account’s group membership using Command Prompt while in the Safe mode.
- Follow steps 1 to 5 above.
- Once logged as the built-in “Administrator”, open Command Prompt by running cmd.exe.
- Use the following command-line syntax to add your account to the “Administrators” group.
net localgroup administrators {username} /add
Example:
net localgroup administrators Ramesh /add
That’s it! You now promoted your user account to an administrator (from Standard or Guest privileges) account.
- Log off from the built-in Administrator account.
- Restart Windows.
- Log in to your original account now — e.g., Ramesh
Method 2: Using Windows RE
If you’ve previously changed the “Administrator” password but don’t remember it now, then “Method 1” won’t help. In that case, you’ll need to use the Windows 10 or 11 USB setup Disk and Windows Recovery Environment to reset the forgotten “Administrator” account password or fix the group membership of the subject user account — e.g., Ramesh.
Note that accessing the built-in recovery options may not help as you may be prompted for an admin account password anyway. So, boot the system with the Windows USB Setup disk and access recovery options.
Next, follow the instructions listed in the article Windows 10 Password Reset Methods for Lost Password Scenario.
After fixing the group membership, your account should be able to regain administrator rights, as seen in the control userpasswords2
dialog below.
If nothing helps, create a new user account while you’re logged in as the built-in administrator. Once you regain the admin privileges for your user account (or create a new user account), you can safely disable the built-in administrator account.
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