No administrative power while on Administrator account?

[Falcon0r]

Hi all, first off thank you very much for any help you can offer me. I appreciate the time and effort you all put into helping people.

I am running on windows Vista (32bit). I don't think any other specs are really necessary, but I can provide them if they are needed.

Basically, I am having a lot of problems all through out my computer, all coming down to the issue of not being the administrator, or having administrator privileges. When I go into Control Panel > User Accounts, it shows me (The only account) as Administrator. However, I am not being recognized as it.

I've been trying to uninstall an old version of Microsoft Office. When I access it via Control Panel > Programs & Features and go to uninstall, it gives me the error "You do not have sufficient access to uninstall Microsoft Office. Please contact your system administrator."

Also, I have an external hard drive full of files that I would love to be able to organize (Moving and deleting files) and anytime I try to move or delete any files I get the error "You'll need to provide administrator permission to move this folder". It gives me two options of "Continue" or "Skip", both of which close out of the window and do nothing.

How can I take control of my own computer? I am sick of this

 

[brummyfan]

This Tutorial may be able to help:
http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/67717-take-ownership-file.html

 

[Falcon0r]

Thank you for the link. So if I want to uninstall Microsoft Office, I would have to take-ownership of every file in the MS OFFICE folder? Sounds terrible. The "files" I was talking before about organizing is a terabyte hard drive, about half full, of random legally obtained media. Maybe I should just backup everything and reformat with Windows 7.

 

[JimJoe]

On WinXP the first account you create is the admin and gives admin privs.

On Vista, the first account you create says you are admin, but it doesn't give you admin privs.

Look in the tutorials here to find out how to get to the Real (hidden) Admin account.

Ah, here ya go:
http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/67567-administrator-account.html?ltr=A

 

[Falcon0r]

On WinXP the first account you create is the admin and gives admin privs.

On Vista, the first account you create says you are admin, but it doesn't give you admin privs.

Look in the tutorials here to find out how to get to the Real (hidden) Admin account.

Ah, here ya go:
http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/67567-administrator-account.html?ltr=A

This looks possibly to be a bit out of my league. I used to be really into computers and would've understood this about a year ago but I stopped doing anything other than "regular use" and gaming since Vista came out. I'm going to try to google a walkthrough for this. Thank you for the help though. This is what I need to do.

 

[JimJoe]

The tutorials here are written to be easy to understand. I find them very useful.