Help with Guest account

[Guest]

Hi, I tried starting my guest account but it is giving me an "access denied"
message. I am using an administrative account, have Windows XP Media Edition
2005, 4 gigs of RAM, an Intel Pentium D processor at 800Mhz. It is also
trying to install a Corel photo program but the access denied error is
interferring with that process. I am out of ideas on what to do here. It also
won't load my iinternet connection. Help please, thanks to all who respond.

 

[Steven L Umbach]

The first thing to check is that you are logged on as an account that is in
the local administrators group because if you are not that would explain the
problems. You can use the command net localgroup administrators to see
members of the administrators group. If you are unsure of how to open a
command window then enter cmd.exe in the run box and hit OK.

Steve

 

[Guest]

I enabled the Guest account via my Administrators Account. I click on the
Guest Account to activate it and I get these problems. I activated the Guest
Account on my other computer without any of these problems. Thanks for
responding.

 

[Steven L Umbach]

Are you sure you are using an administrator account and did you verify it
with the command I recommended? You can also run the command net user
username using the actual username for your account to see if it shows that
it is a member of the administrators group under local group memberships.
Below is the output you should see. Also why do you need to enable the guest
account?? You can also create other user accounts for other user that you
want to be able to logon to your computer.

Steve


D:\WINDOWS\system32>net user steve
User name Steve
Full Name
Comment
User's comment
Country code 000 (System Default)
Account active Yes
Account expires Never

Password last set 7/26/2006 11:16 AM
Password expires Never
Password changeable 7/26/2006 11:16 AM
Password required Yes
User may change password Yes

Workstations allowed All
Logon script
User profile
Home directory
Last logon 8/23/2006 3:42 PM

Logon hours allowed All

Local Group Memberships *Administrators *Network Configuration
*Users
Global Group memberships *None
The command completed successfully.


D:\WINDOWS\system32>

 

[Guest]

Steve, yes I am absolutely sure I am using an administrator account. I did
use the command prompt to make sure there had not been an error, but I have
been using this account a long time and am sure what it is. I wrote in the
post below this one as well in answer to the fellow having a problem with the
internet access with the guest account. I need to let you know that so we
don't go back and forth now between these two posts. My fiance had been using
dialup, I configured a wireless network with a Linksys Router (yes, I know
the difference between dialup and a router a hub a hub w/swith, a router
w/switch is the norm) then changed to a Belkin Router about six months ago
and it has been functioning very well. I configured WPA, changed the SSID,
configured it all at the browser setup page located at 192.168.2.1 which is
the address for the Belkin Routers. I also put in a good password. Now, the
guest account I enabled on my fiance's comptuer is up and running without any
problem except for no internet connection. There is not any icon down in the
notification area, I can't access the network connections via the guest
account to see what is up with this and clicking IE result is an "page can
not be displayed" message. My guest account keeps up with the Access Denied.
I checked the event viewer and there were several entries sugesting the
registry would not let my Admin account lose for some reason. I tried
accessing the link in help without any luck, have looked this up in my
Windows XP Inside Out as well as other books without any success as well.
There should not be any reason for either the access denied nor the lack of
internet connectivity problems yet there you have it. When I switch back to
my admin account everything works fine there. Thanks, Seree

 

[Steven L Umbach]

OK. Are you talking about the built in guest account or just another user
account. Some refer to any other account as to guest which makes things
confusing. As the administrator can you create another user account and
logon with that account, which will create a new user profile, and access
the internet from that user account? I don't know if it is related to your
problem but since you mention registry related problems for the
administrator account you may want to install the User Profile Hive Cleanup
Service on your computer. If you can create another user account that is not
in the administrators group and access the internet with it then there is
something wrong with the user profile for the user account in question you
call guest and you will want to scan the computer for malware and spyware.
AdAware SE is free and works well for spyware if you do not have a spyware
detection and removal program. For the "guest" account be sure to check IE
properties and go to connections to make sure it is set the same as your
user account and run the command ipconfig /all to see what it shows compared
to your user account and try to ping the default gateway IP to see if that
works or not. What exactly do you mean by My guest account keeps up with the
Access Denied??

Steve

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...6D-8912-4E18-B570-42470E2F3582&displaylang=en

 

[Guest]

Good morning Steve, Thanks for responding. I only have a little time this
morning. First, I am not a complete beginner. I am self taught via books from
Microsoft Press such as Windows XP Inside Out by Ed Bott and others, other
books, Microsoft resourses, etc. The "Guest" account I am referring to IS the
Guest account, not a limited user account. I have a great Internet Security
Suite--Panda, there is no Viruses, spyware or other malware on either
computer. I have not had time to ping in the Guest Account in my other
computer as yet, I can't in "MY" computers Guest Account due to the "Access
Denied" situation. I am unable to do anything in that Guest account. I was
woondering if the "Access Denied" may have something to do with the Corel
photo program attempting to install in "My" Guest account. "MY" referring to
my computer, the other is my fiance's computer. Sorry if that was not made
clear my having two computers both with problems with the Guest Account.

I first enabled the Guest Account on my computer. It came up with the access
denied, with the Corel Photo program attempting to install underneath.

Let me tell you a bit about these two computers. The are both XP
Pro-Actually Media Edition 2005. "Mine" is a Dell Dimension 5150, Intel
Pentium D 820-2.8 Ghz, 4 Gigs RAM, 300 SATA Hard drive, ATI video card,
Radean X600 256MB Hypermemory, six months old. The other computer is my
fiance's. It is a 3 month old HP Pavilion a1445n, Pentium D 820-2.8 Ghz, 1
Gig RAM, 200 Gig Hard drive with RAID, NVIDA G Force 62000SE TurboCache
Video card 256 MB. We have a wireless network with the Belkin Pre-N Router
and the corresponding Belkin Adapters. The Network has been functioning fine
except for a few drops once in a while which I need to address with Belkin
soon. That is a seperate issue. Just thought I would throw it in as it does
cause problems occasionally and I thought I should mention it just in case
you are aware of anything which it may relate to here that I don't know. I
have configured the Router at 192.168.2.1 in the browser setup page. I
configured WPA-PSK-TKIP, set a good password at the setup page, changed the
SSID. The Router has four built in ports, an access point, a built in switch
and of course the firewall. I have an account for both my fiance and myself
on both computers for the Network. I have a great Internet Security
Suite-Panda. The firewall in Panda is not compatable with the Belkin WPA so I
do not have it installed, using instead the hardware firewall and the Windows
Firewall. Monthly I run the Microsoft Live Saftey Scan just to ensure there
are not any malware which escaped Panda, nothing ever shows up, both systems
are clean as a wistle. Panda updates every day and performs an automatic full
scan I configured on both computers. The Routrer has automatic DHCP IP
Address assigning. Niether of these computers have ever been on a different
Network configuration. I hope this is enough infor for us to get to the
bottom of what is occurring.

Now, I wanted to activate the Guest account when my son came to visit. Two
things occurred. An "access denied" message, and underneath this the Corel
photo suite attempted to install. When I looked into the Event Viewer it
showed several "warning" messages. The basics of these where the Registry had
not released my Admin Account from use for some odd reason and the other was
a problem with the Corel suite attempting to install, something about a
installation file missing. I checked the Device Manager to make sure all
drivers where functioning correctly, no errors there. Looking through some of
the posts here I saw one where a poster who was having a simular "access
denied" in the Guest Account was told that a certain software program may not
have the proper permissions to run in the Guest Account. So, I was wondering
if the Corel photo program may have triggered this Access Denied on "MY'
Guest Account.

To check if the situation duplicated itself on my Network I enabled the
Guest account on my other computer. It enabled just fine but does not have
any Internet Connectivity. The Icon for our Network does not appear in the
Notification Area, bringing up the Network connections via the control panel
just has an empty box. Clicking on IE just gives the "page can not be
displayed" error message. I don't understand why the Guest account does not
have any Connectivity. Ok, now I hope I have given enough information. If you
need more let me know. I am off to school. No, I am not a kid, an adult with
an empty nest after raising eight children (biological and adopted) as a
widow and am now remarrying and going back to school to finish my B.S. in
Phychology of Behavorail Science, with two years to go. Thanks so much for
your response to this problem I am experiancing. Oh, I am self taught with
computers. Some college courses but mostly via books like Winddows XP Inside
Out by Ed Bott and others, Windows XP Pro, other Microsoft Press books, books
by other author's who came highly reccommended, the Microsoft websites, etc.
I am not a beginner, not yet intermediate but coming up on it. I do not know
much about servers. Again, thanks for all your assistance. Seree

 

[Steven L Umbach]

Hi Seree.

Thanks for the very detailed information! I personally never use the built
in administrator account because enabling it on XP Pro can be a security
vulnerability as it will allow access to shares that have everyone
permissions to for share and folder/NTFS permissions. But just to see I
enabled it and was able to access the internet right away without a problem
as I thought it would work and I noticed that guest could not see any
connections in networking properties just as you described though I did have
networking connectivity. Network configuration is configured at the
"computer" level by an administrator and will then work for any user that
logs onto the computer assuming no software firewall is applying user
specific settings. However the connection settings in IE can vary per user
and if proxy settings are enabled in advanced settings that can cause access
problems for IE. I am still curious if you can create another user account
and logon with that account and access the internet? I also wonder if you
were able to ping or do ipconfig /all for the guest account and what the
results were though I believe you mentioned that you get access denied
errors when you try that as the guest account.

If that is the case that leads me to believe that some process, possibly an
internet "protection" or spyware/malware program, is locking down the guest
account and preventing your access to it even as administrator. If that is
the case then booting into Safe Mode with networking may bypass such
restrictions. Otherwise if an application is doing such lockdown you will
need to logon as administrator and undo those restrictions if that is what
is happening. You also could try using runas to run commands while logged on
as guest to do ping and ipconfig /all which are needed to establish basic
network connectivity.

Having said all that again I do not recommend using the built in guest
account on your computers but instead create another user account that by
default will not be in the administrators group and use that account for a
user that you want to use the computer without advanced privileges. Best
practice is to create a user account for each user that logs onto the
computer. Then each user will have their own profile that can customize the
way they want and the security log will track logon/logoff activity of the
users. You as administrator then can use NTFS permissions to specify which
folders a user can access and which applications they can run.

My bottom line here is that normally the built in guest account when enabled
is not restricted to network connectivity, further testing needs to be done
to determine is basic network connectivity exists for guest account and if
an application or process is interfering with normal access of the guess
account and administrator account but having said that I strongly recommend
that you do not use the built in guest account [keep it disabled] but
instead create other user accounts that are not also administrators.

Steve

 

[Guest]

Steve, You misunderstood. I did not say I was using the default built-in
Administrators Account. You are absolutely correct in how dangerous and even
foolish that would be. No, I said the my main account, the one I used to
enable the Guest Account is "an" administrator account. Big difference.
Thanks for enabling your built in admin account to see if you could recreate
the problem you thought I was having. I have two computers networked, both
with user accounts with identical passwords for networking. I have NTFS
permissions, have disabled the Simple File Sharing, but have not as yet done
any intricate shares other than just allowing access to my fiance's and my
documents. That is the only share I have created since setting up the
network. I enabled the guest account so my son could use the computer to play
games during a recent visit. This was when I discovered the "access denied"
error along with the Corel photo program attempting to install. I read a
previous post regarding a simular situation and the response was sometimes
software does not have proper permissions to run under the Guest Account and
the person suggested contacting the manufacturer and seeing if this may cause
this problem.

Now, I was finally able to get connectivity on the Guest Account on my other
networked computer. It was not anything I did, just this morning it worked.
There was an error, but it did not give me a chance to write it down. I will
see if it replicates next time I open it. At this point I don't know what to
do other than wait for the replication of the other computer I just mentioned
and contact Corel about this program not having permissions to run with the
Guest Account. Thanks for responding to my problems. Sorry about the
misunderstandings regarding what type of account I was using. I am not any
where close to an expert, but I am not a complete beginner now either. I have
a LOT to learn, and really appreciate all the help you and others here
provide. Thank you for your time, have a nice evening. I will post again when
I get this worked out or if I come up with something new to describe. Bye,
Seree
--
seree

Hi Seree.

Thanks for the very detailed information! I personally never use the built
in administrator account because enabling it on XP Pro can be a security
vulnerability as it will allow access to shares that have everyone
permissions to for share and folder/NTFS permissions. But just to see I
enabled it and was able to access the internet right away without a problem
as I thought it would work and I noticed that guest could not see any
connections in networking properties just as you described though I did have
networking connectivity. Network configuration is configured at the
"computer" level by an administrator and will then work for any user that
logs onto the computer assuming no software firewall is applying user
specific settings. However the connection settings in IE can vary per user
and if proxy settings are enabled in advanced settings that can cause access
problems for IE. I am still curious if you can create another user account
and logon with that account and access the internet? I also wonder if you
were able to ping or do ipconfig /all for the guest account and what the
results were though I believe you mentioned that you get access denied
errors when you try that as the guest account.

If that is the case that leads me to believe that some process, possibly an
internet "protection" or spyware/malware program, is locking down the guest
account and preventing your access to it even as administrator. If that is
the case then booting into Safe Mode with networking may bypass such
restrictions. Otherwise if an application is doing such lockdown you will
need to logon as administrator and undo those restrictions if that is what
is happening. You also could try using runas to run commands while logged on
as guest to do ping and ipconfig /all which are needed to establish basic
network connectivity.

Having said all that again I do not recommend using the built in guest
account on your computers but instead create another user account that by
default will not be in the administrators group and use that account for a
user that you want to use the computer without advanced privileges. Best
practice is to create a user account for each user that logs onto the
computer. Then each user will have their own profile that can customize the
way they want and the security log will track logon/logoff activity of the
users. You as administrator then can use NTFS permissions to specify which
folders a user can access and which applications they can run.

My bottom line here is that normally the built in guest account when enabled
is not restricted to network connectivity, further testing needs to be done
to determine is basic network connectivity exists for guest account and if
an application or process is interfering with normal access of the guess
account and administrator account but having said that I strongly recommend
that you do not use the built in guest account [keep it disabled] but
instead create other user accounts that are not also administrators.

Steve

Good morning Steve, Thanks for responding. I only have a little time this
morning. First, I am not a complete beginner. I am self taught via books
from
Microsoft Press such as Windows XP Inside Out by Ed Bott and others, other
books, Microsoft resourses, etc. The "Guest" account I am referring to IS
the
Guest account, not a limited user account. I have a great Internet
Security
Suite--Panda, there is no Viruses, spyware or other malware on either
computer. I have not had time to ping in the Guest Account in my other
computer as yet, I can't in "MY" computers Guest Account due to the
"Access
Denied" situation. I am unable to do anything in that Guest account. I was
woondering if the "Access Denied" may have something to do with the Corel
photo program attempting to install in "My" Guest account. "MY" referring
to
my computer, the other is my fiance's computer. Sorry if that was not made
clear my having two computers both with problems with the Guest Account.

I first enabled the Guest Account on my computer. It came up with the
access
denied, with the Corel Photo program attempting to install underneath.

Let me tell you a bit about these two computers. The are both XP
Pro-Actually Media Edition 2005. "Mine" is a Dell Dimension 5150, Intel
Pentium D 820-2.8 Ghz, 4 Gigs RAM, 300 SATA Hard drive, ATI video card,
Radean X600 256MB Hypermemory, six months old. The other computer is my
fiance's. It is a 3 month old HP Pavilion a1445n, Pentium D 820-2.8 Ghz, 1
Gig RAM, 200 Gig Hard drive with RAID, NVIDA G Force 62000SE TurboCache
Video card 256 MB. We have a wireless network with the Belkin Pre-N Router
and the corresponding Belkin Adapters. The Network has been functioning
fine
except for a few drops once in a while which I need to address with Belkin
soon. That is a seperate issue. Just thought I would throw it in as it
does
cause problems occasionally and I thought I should mention it just in case
you are aware of anything which it may relate to here that I don't know. I
have configured the Router at 192.168.2.1 in the browser setup page. I
configured WPA-PSK-TKIP, set a good password at the setup page, changed
the
SSID. The Router has four built in ports, an access point, a built in
switch
and of course the firewall. I have an account for both my fiance and
myself
on both computers for the Network. I have a great Internet Security
Suite-Panda. The firewall in Panda is not compatable with the Belkin WPA
so I
do not have it installed, using instead the hardware firewall and the
Windows
Firewall. Monthly I run the Microsoft Live Saftey Scan just to ensure
there
are not any malware which escaped Panda, nothing ever shows up, both
systems
are clean as a wistle. Panda updates every day and performs an automatic
full
scan I configured on both computers. The Routrer has automatic DHCP IP
Address assigning. Niether of these computers have ever been on a
different
Network configuration. I hope this is enough infor for us to get to the
bottom of what is occurring.

Now, I wanted to activate the Guest account when my son came to visit. Two
things occurred. An "access denied" message, and underneath this the Corel
photo suite attempted to install. When I looked into the Event Viewer it
showed several "warning" messages. The basics of these where the Registry
had
not released my Admin Account from use for some odd reason and the other
was
a problem with the Corel suite attempting to install, something about a
installation file missing. I checked the Device Manager to make sure all
drivers where functioning correctly, no errors there. Looking through some
of
the posts here I saw one where a poster who was having a simular "access
denied" in the Guest Account was told that a certain software program may
not
have the proper permissions to run in the Guest Account. So, I was
wondering
if the Corel photo program may have triggered this Access Denied on "MY'
Guest Account.

To check if the situation duplicated itself on my Network I enabled the
Guest account on my other computer. It enabled just fine but does not have
any Internet Connectivity. The Icon for our Network does not appear in the
Notification Area, bringing up the Network connections via the control
panel
just has an empty box. Clicking on IE just gives the "page can not be
displayed" error message. I don't understand why the Guest account does
not
have any Connectivity. Ok, now I hope I have given enough information. If
you
need more let me know. I am off to school. No, I am not a kid, an adult
with
an empty nest after raising eight children (biological and adopted) as a
widow and am now remarrying and going back to school to finish my B.S. in
Phychology of Behavorail Science, with two years to go. Thanks so much for
your response to this problem I am experiancing. Oh, I am self taught with
computers. Some college courses but mostly via books like Winddows XP
Inside
Out by Ed Bott and others, Windows XP Pro, other Microsoft Press books,
books
by other author's who came highly reccommended, the Microsoft websites,
etc.
I am not a beginner, not yet intermediate but coming up on it. I do not
know
much about servers. Again, thanks for all your assistance. Seree

 

[Steven L Umbach]

My mistake. I meant to say that I never use the built in guest account -
sorry about that. Enabling the built in guest account can be a security risk
as I mentioned by allowing anonymous access to your computer shares if
everyone has permissions for share and NTFS permissions even is simple file
sharing is disabled. And I did enable the built in guest account and had no
problem accessing the internet with it as it uses that same network
connection as configured by an administrator even though guest can not see
network connections.

Glad to hear you have made some apparent progress but again I would suggest
that you not use the built in guest account and instead create regular user
accounts that use a password for those users that you want to have limited
access to the operating system. Unfortunately there are far too many
programs that will not work unless the user is also in the local
administrators group though I am not sure if your Corel program is one of
them.

Steve

Steve, You misunderstood. I did not say I was using the default built-in
Administrators Account. You are absolutely correct in how dangerous and
even
foolish that would be. No, I said the my main account, the one I used to
enable the Guest Account is "an" administrator account. Big difference.
Thanks for enabling your built in admin account to see if you could
recreate
the problem you thought I was having. I have two computers networked, both
with user accounts with identical passwords for networking. I have NTFS
permissions, have disabled the Simple File Sharing, but have not as yet
done
any intricate shares other than just allowing access to my fiance's and my
documents. That is the only share I have created since setting up the
network. I enabled the guest account so my son could use the computer to
play
games during a recent visit. This was when I discovered the "access
denied"
error along with the Corel photo program attempting to install. I read a
previous post regarding a simular situation and the response was sometimes
software does not have proper permissions to run under the Guest Account
and
the person suggested contacting the manufacturer and seeing if this may
cause
this problem.

Now, I was finally able to get connectivity on the Guest Account on my
other
networked computer. It was not anything I did, just this morning it
worked.
There was an error, but it did not give me a chance to write it down. I
will
see if it replicates next time I open it. At this point I don't know what
to
do other than wait for the replication of the other computer I just
mentioned
and contact Corel about this program not having permissions to run with
the
Guest Account. Thanks for responding to my problems. Sorry about the
misunderstandings regarding what type of account I was using. I am not any
where close to an expert, but I am not a complete beginner now either. I
have
a LOT to learn, and really appreciate all the help you and others here
provide. Thank you for your time, have a nice evening. I will post again
when
I get this worked out or if I come up with something new to describe. Bye,
Seree
--
seree

Hi Seree.

Thanks for the very detailed information! I personally never use the
built
in administrator account because enabling it on XP Pro can be a security
vulnerability as it will allow access to shares that have everyone
permissions to for share and folder/NTFS permissions. But just to see I
enabled it and was able to access the internet right away without a
problem
as I thought it would work and I noticed that guest could not see any
connections in networking properties just as you described though I did
have
networking connectivity. Network configuration is configured at the
"computer" level by an administrator and will then work for any user that
logs onto the computer assuming no software firewall is applying user
specific settings. However the connection settings in IE can vary per
user
and if proxy settings are enabled in advanced settings that can cause
access
problems for IE. I am still curious if you can create another user
account
and logon with that account and access the internet? I also wonder if you
were able to ping or do ipconfig /all for the guest account and what the
results were though I believe you mentioned that you get access denied
errors when you try that as the guest account.

If that is the case that leads me to believe that some process, possibly
an
internet "protection" or spyware/malware program, is locking down the
guest
account and preventing your access to it even as administrator. If that
is
the case then booting into Safe Mode with networking may bypass such
restrictions. Otherwise if an application is doing such lockdown you will
need to logon as administrator and undo those restrictions if that is
what
is happening. You also could try using runas to run commands while logged
on
as guest to do ping and ipconfig /all which are needed to establish basic
network connectivity.

Having said all that again I do not recommend using the built in guest
account on your computers but instead create another user account that by
default will not be in the administrators group and use that account for
a
user that you want to use the computer without advanced privileges. Best
practice is to create a user account for each user that logs onto the
computer. Then each user will have their own profile that can customize
the
way they want and the security log will track logon/logoff activity of
the
users. You as administrator then can use NTFS permissions to specify
which
folders a user can access and which applications they can run.

My bottom line here is that normally the built in guest account when
enabled
is not restricted to network connectivity, further testing needs to be
done
to determine is basic network connectivity exists for guest account and
if
an application or process is interfering with normal access of the guess
account and administrator account but having said that I strongly
recommend
that you do not use the built in guest account [keep it disabled] but
instead create other user accounts that are not also administrators.

Steve

Good morning Steve, Thanks for responding. I only have a little time
this
morning. First, I am not a complete beginner. I am self taught via
books
from
Microsoft Press such as Windows XP Inside Out by Ed Bott and others,
other
books, Microsoft resourses, etc. The "Guest" account I am referring to
IS
the
Guest account, not a limited user account. I have a great Internet
Security
Suite--Panda, there is no Viruses, spyware or other malware on either
computer. I have not had time to ping in the Guest Account in my other
computer as yet, I can't in "MY" computers Guest Account due to the
"Access
Denied" situation. I am unable to do anything in that Guest account. I
was
woondering if the "Access Denied" may have something to do with the
Corel
photo program attempting to install in "My" Guest account. "MY"
referring
to
my computer, the other is my fiance's computer. Sorry if that was not
made
clear my having two computers both with problems with the Guest
Account.

I first enabled the Guest Account on my computer. It came up with the
access
denied, with the Corel Photo program attempting to install underneath.

Let me tell you a bit about these two computers. The are both XP
Pro-Actually Media Edition 2005. "Mine" is a Dell Dimension 5150, Intel
Pentium D 820-2.8 Ghz, 4 Gigs RAM, 300 SATA Hard drive, ATI video card,
Radean X600 256MB Hypermemory, six months old. The other computer is my
fiance's. It is a 3 month old HP Pavilion a1445n, Pentium D 820-2.8
Ghz, 1
Gig RAM, 200 Gig Hard drive with RAID, NVIDA G Force 62000SE
TurboCache
Video card 256 MB. We have a wireless network with the Belkin Pre-N
Router
and the corresponding Belkin Adapters. The Network has been functioning
fine
except for a few drops once in a while which I need to address with
Belkin
soon. That is a seperate issue. Just thought I would throw it in as it
does
cause problems occasionally and I thought I should mention it just in
case
you are aware of anything which it may relate to here that I don't
know. I
have configured the Router at 192.168.2.1 in the browser setup page. I
configured WPA-PSK-TKIP, set a good password at the setup page, changed
the
SSID. The Router has four built in ports, an access point, a built in
switch
and of course the firewall. I have an account for both my fiance and
myself
on both computers for the Network. I have a great Internet Security
Suite-Panda. The firewall in Panda is not compatable with the Belkin
WPA
so I
do not have it installed, using instead the hardware firewall and the
Windows
Firewall. Monthly I run the Microsoft Live Saftey Scan just to ensure
there
are not any malware which escaped Panda, nothing ever shows up, both
systems
are clean as a wistle. Panda updates every day and performs an
automatic
full
scan I configured on both computers. The Routrer has automatic DHCP IP
Address assigning. Niether of these computers have ever been on a
different
Network configuration. I hope this is enough infor for us to get to the
bottom of what is occurring.

Now, I wanted to activate the Guest account when my son came to visit.
Two
things occurred. An "access denied" message, and underneath this the
Corel
photo suite attempted to install. When I looked into the Event Viewer
it
showed several "warning" messages. The basics of these where the
Registry
had
not released my Admin Account from use for some odd reason and the
other
was
a problem with the Corel suite attempting to install, something about a
installation file missing. I checked the Device Manager to make sure
all
drivers where functioning correctly, no errors there. Looking through
some
of
the posts here I saw one where a poster who was having a simular
"access
denied" in the Guest Account was told that a certain software program
may
not
have the proper permissions to run in the Guest Account. So, I was
wondering
if the Corel photo program may have triggered this Access Denied on
"MY'
Guest Account.

To check if the situation duplicated itself on my Network I enabled the
Guest account on my other computer. It enabled just fine but does not
have
any Internet Connectivity. The Icon for our Network does not appear in
the
Notification Area, bringing up the Network connections via the control
panel
just has an empty box. Clicking on IE just gives the "page can not be
displayed" error message. I don't understand why the Guest account does
not
have any Connectivity. Ok, now I hope I have given enough information.
If
you
need more let me know. I am off to school. No, I am not a kid, an adult
with
an empty nest after raising eight children (biological and adopted) as
a
widow and am now remarrying and going back to school to finish my B.S.
in
Phychology of Behavorail Science, with two years to go. Thanks so much
for
your response to this problem I am experiancing. Oh, I am self taught
with
computers. Some college courses but mostly via books like Winddows XP
Inside
Out by Ed Bott and others, Windows XP Pro, other Microsoft Press books,
books
by other author's who came highly reccommended, the Microsoft websites,
etc.
I am not a beginner, not yet intermediate but coming up on it. I do not
know
much about servers. Again, thanks for all your assistance. Seree


--
seree


:

OK. Are you talking about the built in guest account or just another
user
account. Some refer to any other account as to guest which makes
things
confusing. As the administrator can you create another user account
and
logon with that account, which will create a new user profile, and
access
the internet from that user account? I don't know if it is related to
your
problem but since you mention registry related problems for the
administrator account you may want to install the User Profile Hive
Cleanup
Service on your computer. If you can create another user account that
is
not
in the administrators group and access the internet with it then there
is
something wrong with the user profile for the user account in question
you
call guest and you will want to scan the computer for malware and
spyware.
AdAware SE is free and works well for spyware if you do not have a
spyware
detection and removal program. For the "guest" account be sure to
check
IE
properties and go to connections to make sure it is set the same as
your
user account and run the command ipconfig /all to see what it shows
compared
to your user account and try to ping the default gateway IP to see if
that
works or not. What exactly do you mean by My guest account keeps up
with
the
Access Denied??

Steve

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...6D-8912-4E18-B570-42470E2F3582&displaylang=en


Steve, yes I am absolutely sure I am using an administrator account.
I
did
use the command prompt to make sure there had not been an error, but
I
have
been using this account a long time and am sure what it is. I wrote
in
the
post below this one as well in answer to the fellow having a problem
with
the
internet access with the guest account. I need to let you know that
so
we
don't go back and forth now between these two posts. My fiance had
been
using
dialup, I configured a wireless network with a Linksys Router (yes,
I
know
the difference between dialup and a router a hub a hub w/swith, a
router
w/switch is the norm) then changed to a Belkin Router about six
months
ago
and it has been functioning very well. I configured WPA, changed the
SSID,
configured it all at the browser setup page located at 192.168.2.1
which
is
the address for the Belkin Routers. I also put in a good password.
Now,
the
guest account I enabled on my fiance's comptuer is up and running
without
any
problem except for no internet connection. There is not any icon
down
in
the
notification area, I can't access the network connections via the
guest
account to see what is up with this and clicking IE result is an
"page
can
not be displayed" message. My guest account keeps up with the Access
Denied.
I checked the event viewer and there were several entries sugesting
the
registry would not let my Admin account lose for some reason. I
tried
accessing the link in help without any luck, have looked this up in
my
Windows XP Inside Out as well as other books without any success as
well.
There should not be any reason for either the access denied nor the
lack
of
internet connectivity problems yet there you have it. When I switch
back
to
my admin account everything works fine there. Thanks, Seree
--
seree


:

Are you sure you are using an administrator account and did you
verify
it
with the command I recommended? You can also run the command net
user
username using the actual username for your account to see if it
shows
that
it is a member of the administrators group under local group
memberships.
Below is the output you should see. Also why do you need to enable
the
guest
account?? You can also create other user accounts for other user
that
you
want to be able to logon to your computer.

Steve


D:\WINDOWS\system32>net user steve
User name Steve
Full Name
Comment
User's comment
Country code 000 (System Default)
Account active Yes
Account expires Never

Password last set 7/26/2006 11:16 AM
Password expires Never
Password changeable 7/26/2006 11:16 AM
Password required Yes
User may change password Yes

Workstations allowed All
Logon script
User profile
Home directory
Last logon 8/23/2006 3:42 PM

Logon hours allowed All

Local Group Memberships *Administrators *Network
Configuration
*Users
Global Group memberships *None
The command completed successfully.

 

[Guest]

Thank you for your correction as it did have me a tad confused. I hear what
you are saying about the guest account. I am seriously considering all you
had to say in regards to not using it. I am considering creating a limited
user account which will be for guests and then use the permissions to control
it. I am just learning how to use the Local Users and Groups Console and the
Group Policy Console. I do a lot of reading and research before I do
anything. Well, most anything! lol I have also been following some of your
links in answers to others here. I am self taught. I have a lot to learn, but
am doing so as quickly as I can. I sent an e-mail off to the Corel folks with
the Event Viewer ID and description of the events. I still need to contact
Belkin about the adapters. Just thought to update you on my progress. I
really appreciate all the hard work you and others do here in assisting all
us who are lost and/or learning. I use to have a great help desk by Dell but
they cut it off after I exchanged CPU's. They told me if I purchased my
replacement unit through Dell it would transfer to the new unit. Well, they
reneged on that after I bought the unit of course. Drat them! lol But that
help desk was great. They don't sell the help desk in one or two year
contracts any longer. Only in "instances" or a package of five instances.
Which is the point in them cancelling out on me later. Darn! Oh, well. Thanks
again for all your assistance. I will write back on this strand when I find
out what is going on.
--
seree

My mistake. I meant to say that I never use the built in guest account -
sorry about that. Enabling the built in guest account can be a security risk
as I mentioned by allowing anonymous access to your computer shares if
everyone has permissions for share and NTFS permissions even is simple file
sharing is disabled. And I did enable the built in guest account and had no
problem accessing the internet with it as it uses that same network
connection as configured by an administrator even though guest can not see
network connections.

Glad to hear you have made some apparent progress but again I would suggest
that you not use the built in guest account and instead create regular user
accounts that use a password for those users that you want to have limited
access to the operating system. Unfortunately there are far too many
programs that will not work unless the user is also in the local
administrators group though I am not sure if your Corel program is one of
them.

Steve

Steve, You misunderstood. I did not say I was using the default built-in
Administrators Account. You are absolutely correct in how dangerous and
even
foolish that would be. No, I said the my main account, the one I used to
enable the Guest Account is "an" administrator account. Big difference.
Thanks for enabling your built in admin account to see if you could
recreate
the problem you thought I was having. I have two computers networked, both
with user accounts with identical passwords for networking. I have NTFS
permissions, have disabled the Simple File Sharing, but have not as yet
done
any intricate shares other than just allowing access to my fiance's and my
documents. That is the only share I have created since setting up the
network. I enabled the guest account so my son could use the computer to
play
games during a recent visit. This was when I discovered the "access
denied"
error along with the Corel photo program attempting to install. I read a
previous post regarding a simular situation and the response was sometimes
software does not have proper permissions to run under the Guest Account
and
the person suggested contacting the manufacturer and seeing if this may
cause
this problem.

Now, I was finally able to get connectivity on the Guest Account on my
other
networked computer. It was not anything I did, just this morning it
worked.
There was an error, but it did not give me a chance to write it down. I
will
see if it replicates next time I open it. At this point I don't know what
to
do other than wait for the replication of the other computer I just
mentioned
and contact Corel about this program not having permissions to run with
the
Guest Account. Thanks for responding to my problems. Sorry about the
misunderstandings regarding what type of account I was using. I am not any
where close to an expert, but I am not a complete beginner now either. I
have
a LOT to learn, and really appreciate all the help you and others here
provide. Thank you for your time, have a nice evening. I will post again
when
I get this worked out or if I come up with something new to describe. Bye,
Seree
--
seree

Hi Seree.

Thanks for the very detailed information! I personally never use the
built
in administrator account because enabling it on XP Pro can be a security
vulnerability as it will allow access to shares that have everyone
permissions to for share and folder/NTFS permissions. But just to see I
enabled it and was able to access the internet right away without a
problem
as I thought it would work and I noticed that guest could not see any
connections in networking properties just as you described though I did
have
networking connectivity. Network configuration is configured at the
"computer" level by an administrator and will then work for any user that
logs onto the computer assuming no software firewall is applying user
specific settings. However the connection settings in IE can vary per
user
and if proxy settings are enabled in advanced settings that can cause
access
problems for IE. I am still curious if you can create another user
account
and logon with that account and access the internet? I also wonder if you
were able to ping or do ipconfig /all for the guest account and what the
results were though I believe you mentioned that you get access denied
errors when you try that as the guest account.

If that is the case that leads me to believe that some process, possibly
an
internet "protection" or spyware/malware program, is locking down the
guest
account and preventing your access to it even as administrator. If that
is
the case then booting into Safe Mode with networking may bypass such
restrictions. Otherwise if an application is doing such lockdown you will
need to logon as administrator and undo those restrictions if that is
what
is happening. You also could try using runas to run commands while logged
on
as guest to do ping and ipconfig /all which are needed to establish basic
network connectivity.

Having said all that again I do not recommend using the built in guest
account on your computers but instead create another user account that by
default will not be in the administrators group and use that account for
a
user that you want to use the computer without advanced privileges. Best
practice is to create a user account for each user that logs onto the
computer. Then each user will have their own profile that can customize
the
way they want and the security log will track logon/logoff activity of
the
users. You as administrator then can use NTFS permissions to specify
which
folders a user can access and which applications they can run.

My bottom line here is that normally the built in guest account when
enabled
is not restricted to network connectivity, further testing needs to be
done
to determine is basic network connectivity exists for guest account and
if
an application or process is interfering with normal access of the guess
account and administrator account but having said that I strongly
recommend
that you do not use the built in guest account [keep it disabled] but
instead create other user accounts that are not also administrators.

Steve

Good morning Steve, Thanks for responding. I only have a little time
this
morning. First, I am not a complete beginner. I am self taught via
books
from
Microsoft Press such as Windows XP Inside Out by Ed Bott and others,
other
books, Microsoft resourses, etc. The "Guest" account I am referring to
IS
the
Guest account, not a limited user account. I have a great Internet
Security
Suite--Panda, there is no Viruses, spyware or other malware on either
computer. I have not had time to ping in the Guest Account in my other
computer as yet, I can't in "MY" computers Guest Account due to the
"Access
Denied" situation. I am unable to do anything in that Guest account. I
was
woondering if the "Access Denied" may have something to do with the
Corel
photo program attempting to install in "My" Guest account. "MY"
referring
to
my computer, the other is my fiance's computer. Sorry if that was not
made
clear my having two computers both with problems with the Guest
Account.

I first enabled the Guest Account on my computer. It came up with the
access
denied, with the Corel Photo program attempting to install underneath.

Let me tell you a bit about these two computers. The are both XP
Pro-Actually Media Edition 2005. "Mine" is a Dell Dimension 5150, Intel
Pentium D 820-2.8 Ghz, 4 Gigs RAM, 300 SATA Hard drive, ATI video card,
Radean X600 256MB Hypermemory, six months old. The other computer is my
fiance's. It is a 3 month old HP Pavilion a1445n, Pentium D 820-2.8
Ghz, 1
Gig RAM, 200 Gig Hard drive with RAID, NVIDA G Force 62000SE
TurboCache
Video card 256 MB. We have a wireless network with the Belkin Pre-N
Router
and the corresponding Belkin Adapters. The Network has been functioning
fine
except for a few drops once in a while which I need to address with
Belkin
soon. That is a seperate issue. Just thought I would throw it in as it
does
cause problems occasionally and I thought I should mention it just in
case
you are aware of anything which it may relate to here that I don't
know. I
have configured the Router at 192.168.2.1 in the browser setup page. I
configured WPA-PSK-TKIP, set a good password at the setup page, changed
the
SSID. The Router has four built in ports, an access point, a built in
switch
and of course the firewall. I have an account for both my fiance and
myself
on both computers for the Network. I have a great Internet Security
Suite-Panda. The firewall in Panda is not compatable with the Belkin
WPA
so I
do not have it installed, using instead the hardware firewall and the
Windows
Firewall. Monthly I run the Microsoft Live Saftey Scan just to ensure
there
are not any malware which escaped Panda, nothing ever shows up, both
systems
are clean as a wistle. Panda updates every day and performs an
automatic
full
scan I configured on both computers. The Routrer has automatic DHCP IP
Address assigning. Niether of these computers have ever been on a
different
Network configuration. I hope this is enough infor for us to get to the
bottom of what is occurring.

Now, I wanted to activate the Guest account when my son came to visit.
Two
things occurred. An "access denied" message, and underneath this the
Corel
photo suite attempted to install. When I looked into the Event Viewer
it
showed several "warning" messages. The basics of these where the
Registry
had
not released my Admin Account from use for some odd reason and the
other
was
a problem with the Corel suite attempting to install, something about a
installation file missing. I checked the Device Manager to make sure
all
drivers where functioning correctly, no errors there. Looking through
some
of
the posts here I saw one where a poster who was having a simular
"access
denied" in the Guest Account was told that a certain software program
may
not
have the proper permissions to run in the Guest Account. So, I was
wondering
if the Corel photo program may have triggered this Access Denied on
"MY'
Guest Account.

To check if the situation duplicated itself on my Network I enabled the
Guest account on my other computer. It enabled just fine but does not
have
any Internet Connectivity. The Icon for our Network does not appear in
the
Notification Area, bringing up the Network connections via the control
panel
just has an empty box. Clicking on IE just gives the "page can not be
displayed" error message. I don't understand why the Guest account does
not
have any Connectivity. Ok, now I hope I have given enough information.
If
you
need more let me know. I am off to school. No, I am not a kid, an adult
with
an empty nest after raising eight children (biological and adopted) as
a
widow and am now remarrying and going back to school to finish my B.S.
in
Phychology of Behavorail Science, with two years to go. Thanks so much
for
your response to this problem I am experiancing. Oh, I am self taught
with
computers. Some college courses but mostly via books like Winddows XP
Inside
Out by Ed Bott and others, Windows XP Pro, other Microsoft Press books,
books
by other author's who came highly reccommended, the Microsoft websites,
etc.
I am not a beginner, not yet intermediate but coming up on it. I do not
know
much about servers. Again, thanks for all your assistance. Seree


--
seree


:

OK. Are you talking about the built in guest account or just another
user
account. Some refer to any other account as to guest which makes
things
confusing. As the administrator can you create another user account
and
logon with that account, which will create a new user profile, and
access
the internet from that user account? I don't know if it is related to

 

[Steven L Umbach]

Sorry to hear your experience with Dell. I think you may find some progress
not using the built in guest account so let us know when you around to all
that though again some poorly written [from a security point of view] will
not run right or at all for a regular user either. Sounds like you are
coming along just fine learning about your operating system and computer and
you will learn a lot resolving situations like the one you currently are
having though it is a pain until you do get it resolved. I also recommend
taking advantage of the built in Help for XP. It is surprisingly good once
you learn how to make the most of it.Let us know how things progress.

Steve

Thank you for your correction as it did have me a tad confused. I hear
what
you are saying about the guest account. I am seriously considering all you
had to say in regards to not using it. I am considering creating a limited
user account which will be for guests and then use the permissions to
control
it. I am just learning how to use the Local Users and Groups Console and
the
Group Policy Console. I do a lot of reading and research before I do
anything. Well, most anything! lol I have also been following some of your
links in answers to others here. I am self taught. I have a lot to learn,
but
am doing so as quickly as I can. I sent an e-mail off to the Corel folks
with
the Event Viewer ID and description of the events. I still need to contact
Belkin about the adapters. Just thought to update you on my progress. I
really appreciate all the hard work you and others do here in assisting
all
us who are lost and/or learning. I use to have a great help desk by Dell
but
they cut it off after I exchanged CPU's. They told me if I purchased my
replacement unit through Dell it would transfer to the new unit. Well,
they
reneged on that after I bought the unit of course. Drat them! lol But that
help desk was great. They don't sell the help desk in one or two year
contracts any longer. Only in "instances" or a package of five instances.
Which is the point in them cancelling out on me later. Darn! Oh, well.
Thanks
again for all your assistance. I will write back on this strand when I
find
out what is going on.
--
seree

My mistake. I meant to say that I never use the built in guest account -
sorry about that. Enabling the built in guest account can be a security
risk
as I mentioned by allowing anonymous access to your computer shares if
everyone has permissions for share and NTFS permissions even is simple
file
sharing is disabled. And I did enable the built in guest account and had
no
problem accessing the internet with it as it uses that same network
connection as configured by an administrator even though guest can not
see
network connections.

Glad to hear you have made some apparent progress but again I would
suggest
that you not use the built in guest account and instead create regular
user
accounts that use a password for those users that you want to have
limited
access to the operating system. Unfortunately there are far too many
programs that will not work unless the user is also in the local
administrators group though I am not sure if your Corel program is one of
them.

Steve

Steve, You misunderstood. I did not say I was using the default
built-in
Administrators Account. You are absolutely correct in how dangerous and
even
foolish that would be. No, I said the my main account, the one I used
to
enable the Guest Account is "an" administrator account. Big difference.
Thanks for enabling your built in admin account to see if you could
recreate
the problem you thought I was having. I have two computers networked,
both
with user accounts with identical passwords for networking. I have NTFS
permissions, have disabled the Simple File Sharing, but have not as yet
done
any intricate shares other than just allowing access to my fiance's and
my
documents. That is the only share I have created since setting up the
network. I enabled the guest account so my son could use the computer
to
play
games during a recent visit. This was when I discovered the "access
denied"
error along with the Corel photo program attempting to install. I read
a
previous post regarding a simular situation and the response was
sometimes
software does not have proper permissions to run under the Guest
Account
and
the person suggested contacting the manufacturer and seeing if this may
cause
this problem.

Now, I was finally able to get connectivity on the Guest Account on my
other
networked computer. It was not anything I did, just this morning it
worked.
There was an error, but it did not give me a chance to write it down. I
will
see if it replicates next time I open it. At this point I don't know
what
to
do other than wait for the replication of the other computer I just
mentioned
and contact Corel about this program not having permissions to run with
the
Guest Account. Thanks for responding to my problems. Sorry about the
misunderstandings regarding what type of account I was using. I am not
any
where close to an expert, but I am not a complete beginner now either.
I
have
a LOT to learn, and really appreciate all the help you and others here
provide. Thank you for your time, have a nice evening. I will post
again
when
I get this worked out or if I come up with something new to describe.
Bye,
Seree
--
seree


:

Hi Seree.

Thanks for the very detailed information! I personally never use the
built
in administrator account because enabling it on XP Pro can be a
security
vulnerability as it will allow access to shares that have everyone
permissions to for share and folder/NTFS permissions. But just to see
I
enabled it and was able to access the internet right away without a
problem
as I thought it would work and I noticed that guest could not see any
connections in networking properties just as you described though I
did
have
networking connectivity. Network configuration is configured at the
"computer" level by an administrator and will then work for any user
that
logs onto the computer assuming no software firewall is applying user
specific settings. However the connection settings in IE can vary per
user
and if proxy settings are enabled in advanced settings that can cause
access
problems for IE. I am still curious if you can create another user
account
and logon with that account and access the internet? I also wonder if
you
were able to ping or do ipconfig /all for the guest account and what
the
results were though I believe you mentioned that you get access denied
errors when you try that as the guest account.

If that is the case that leads me to believe that some process,
possibly
an
internet "protection" or spyware/malware program, is locking down the
guest
account and preventing your access to it even as administrator. If
that
is
the case then booting into Safe Mode with networking may bypass such
restrictions. Otherwise if an application is doing such lockdown you
will
need to logon as administrator and undo those restrictions if that is
what
is happening. You also could try using runas to run commands while
logged
on
as guest to do ping and ipconfig /all which are needed to establish
basic
network connectivity.

Having said all that again I do not recommend using the built in guest
account on your computers but instead create another user account that
by
default will not be in the administrators group and use that account
for
a
user that you want to use the computer without advanced privileges.
Best
practice is to create a user account for each user that logs onto the
computer. Then each user will have their own profile that can
customize
the
way they want and the security log will track logon/logoff activity of
the
users. You as administrator then can use NTFS permissions to specify
which
folders a user can access and which applications they can run.

My bottom line here is that normally the built in guest account when
enabled
is not restricted to network connectivity, further testing needs to be
done
to determine is basic network connectivity exists for guest account
and
if
an application or process is interfering with normal access of the
guess
account and administrator account but having said that I strongly
recommend
that you do not use the built in guest account [keep it disabled] but
instead create other user accounts that are not also administrators.

Steve

Good morning Steve, Thanks for responding. I only have a little time
this
morning. First, I am not a complete beginner. I am self taught via
books
from
Microsoft Press such as Windows XP Inside Out by Ed Bott and others,
other
books, Microsoft resourses, etc. The "Guest" account I am referring
to
IS
the
Guest account, not a limited user account. I have a great Internet
Security
Suite--Panda, there is no Viruses, spyware or other malware on
either
computer. I have not had time to ping in the Guest Account in my
other
computer as yet, I can't in "MY" computers Guest Account due to the
"Access
Denied" situation. I am unable to do anything in that Guest account.
I
was
woondering if the "Access Denied" may have something to do with the
Corel
photo program attempting to install in "My" Guest account. "MY"
referring
to
my computer, the other is my fiance's computer. Sorry if that was
not
made
clear my having two computers both with problems with the Guest
Account.

I first enabled the Guest Account on my computer. It came up with
the
access
denied, with the Corel Photo program attempting to install
underneath.

Let me tell you a bit about these two computers. The are both XP
Pro-Actually Media Edition 2005. "Mine" is a Dell Dimension 5150,
Intel
Pentium D 820-2.8 Ghz, 4 Gigs RAM, 300 SATA Hard drive, ATI video
card,
Radean X600 256MB Hypermemory, six months old. The other computer is
my
fiance's. It is a 3 month old HP Pavilion a1445n, Pentium D 820-2.8
Ghz, 1
Gig RAM, 200 Gig Hard drive with RAID, NVIDA G Force 62000SE
TurboCache
Video card 256 MB. We have a wireless network with the Belkin Pre-N
Router
and the corresponding Belkin Adapters. The Network has been
functioning
fine
except for a few drops once in a while which I need to address with
Belkin
soon. That is a seperate issue. Just thought I would throw it in as
it
does
cause problems occasionally and I thought I should mention it just
in
case
you are aware of anything which it may relate to here that I don't
know. I
have configured the Router at 192.168.2.1 in the browser setup page.
I
configured WPA-PSK-TKIP, set a good password at the setup page,
changed
the
SSID. The Router has four built in ports, an access point, a built
in
switch
and of course the firewall. I have an account for both my fiance and
myself
on both computers for the Network. I have a great Internet Security
Suite-Panda. The firewall in Panda is not compatable with the Belkin
WPA
so I
do not have it installed, using instead the hardware firewall and
the
Windows
Firewall. Monthly I run the Microsoft Live Saftey Scan just to
ensure
there
are not any malware which escaped Panda, nothing ever shows up, both
systems
are clean as a wistle. Panda updates every day and performs an
automatic
full
scan I configured on both computers. The Routrer has automatic DHCP
IP
Address assigning. Niether of these computers have ever been on a
different
Network configuration. I hope this is enough infor for us to get to
the
bottom of what is occurring.

Now, I wanted to activate the Guest account when my son came to
visit.
Two
things occurred. An "access denied" message, and underneath this the
Corel
photo suite attempted to install. When I looked into the Event
Viewer
it
showed several "warning" messages. The basics of these where the
Registry
had
not released my Admin Account from use for some odd reason and the
other
was
a problem with the Corel suite attempting to install, something
about a
installation file missing. I checked the Device Manager to make sure
all
drivers where functioning correctly, no errors there. Looking
through
some
of
the posts here I saw one where a poster who was having a simular
"access
denied" in the Guest Account was told that a certain software
program
may
not
have the proper permissions to run in the Guest Account. So, I was
wondering
if the Corel photo program may have triggered this Access Denied on
"MY'
Guest Account.

To check if the situation duplicated itself on my Network I enabled
the
Guest account on my other computer. It enabled just fine but does
not
have
any Internet Connectivity. The Icon for our Network does not appear
in
the
Notification Area, bringing up the Network connections via the
control
panel
just has an empty box. Clicking on IE just gives the "page can not
be
displayed" error message. I don't understand why the Guest account
does
not
have any Connectivity. Ok, now I hope I have given enough
information.
If
you
need more let me know. I am off to school. No, I am not a kid, an
adult
with
an empty nest after raising eight children (biological and adopted)
as
a
widow and am now remarrying and going back to school to finish my
B.S.
in
Phychology of Behavorail Science, with two years to go. Thanks so
much
for
your response to this problem I am experiancing. Oh, I am self
taught
with
computers. Some college courses but mostly via books like Winddows
XP
Inside
Out by Ed Bott and others, Windows XP Pro, other Microsoft Press
books,
books
by other author's who came highly reccommended, the Microsoft
websites,
etc.
I am not a beginner, not yet intermediate but coming up on it. I do
not
know
much about servers. Again, thanks for all your assistance. Seree


--
seree


:

OK. Are you talking about the built in guest account or just
another
user
account. Some refer to any other account as to guest which makes
things
confusing. As the administrator can you create another user account
and
logon with that account, which will create a new user profile, and
access
the internet from that user account? I don't know if it is related
to

 

[Guest]

Hi, I am writing with an update regarding this issue. I disabled the Guest
Account and created a new User Account. Problem is there too, however
something really odd is going on. I get the "Access Denied" dialog box, but I
am able to access ALL programs and IE works just fine as well. I can browse
and use all programs. However, this little two word dialog box just sits on
screen always. I can put it under the programs, which hides it, move it
around the screen and even place it so it is nearly gone at each edge of the
screen and under the taskbar. What is up with this darn annoying dialog box?
If Access is Denied, what access is being denied? Why if Access is Denied am
I able to use every feature on the User Account? Same thing in the Guest
Account as well. How do I get rid of this dialog box? While I am able to make
it unobtrusive, I have to fiddle with it each time I or somebody else logs on
to the account. Very annoying! lol At least the account is functioning, so
progress is occurring, which is good news. I am in contact with Corel, the
program I suspect is at the root of this, but so far the person responding to
my queiries is unable to fix this as well. He told me to go into C:\Program
Files\Corel and make sure the Guest Account has Full Permissions. Then to go
to HKEY_Current_User\Software\Corel, right click then select permissions and
make sure the Guest Account has Full Permissions there too. However, niether
this folder or key have the Guest Account listed as an authorized User. The
folder has myself, the creater owner, administrators, power users (me) and
Users, but not Guest. Isn't Guest a member of the Users Group? The Registry
Key has Me, administrators, System, and an odd User entry called Restricted,
but not Guest, or Users. Any ideas out there on what is causing this problem
and how to get rid of the Access Denied dialog box? Thanks in advance for any
responses. Seree
--
seree

Sorry to hear your experience with Dell. I think you may find some progress
not using the built in guest account so let us know when you around to all
that though again some poorly written [from a security point of view] will
not run right or at all for a regular user either. Sounds like you are
coming along just fine learning about your operating system and computer and
you will learn a lot resolving situations like the one you currently are
having though it is a pain until you do get it resolved. I also recommend
taking advantage of the built in Help for XP. It is surprisingly good once
you learn how to make the most of it.Let us know how things progress.

Steve

Thank you for your correction as it did have me a tad confused. I hear
what
you are saying about the guest account. I am seriously considering all you
had to say in regards to not using it. I am considering creating a limited
user account which will be for guests and then use the permissions to
control
it. I am just learning how to use the Local Users and Groups Console and
the
Group Policy Console. I do a lot of reading and research before I do
anything. Well, most anything! lol I have also been following some of your
links in answers to others here. I am self taught. I have a lot to learn,
but
am doing so as quickly as I can. I sent an e-mail off to the Corel folks
with
the Event Viewer ID and description of the events. I still need to contact
Belkin about the adapters. Just thought to update you on my progress. I
really appreciate all the hard work you and others do here in assisting
all
us who are lost and/or learning. I use to have a great help desk by Dell
but
they cut it off after I exchanged CPU's. They told me if I purchased my
replacement unit through Dell it would transfer to the new unit. Well,
they
reneged on that after I bought the unit of course. Drat them! lol But that
help desk was great. They don't sell the help desk in one or two year
contracts any longer. Only in "instances" or a package of five instances.
Which is the point in them cancelling out on me later. Darn! Oh, well.
Thanks
again for all your assistance. I will write back on this strand when I
find
out what is going on.
--
seree

My mistake. I meant to say that I never use the built in guest account -
sorry about that. Enabling the built in guest account can be a security
risk
as I mentioned by allowing anonymous access to your computer shares if
everyone has permissions for share and NTFS permissions even is simple
file
sharing is disabled. And I did enable the built in guest account and had
no
problem accessing the internet with it as it uses that same network
connection as configured by an administrator even though guest can not
see
network connections.

Glad to hear you have made some apparent progress but again I would
suggest
that you not use the built in guest account and instead create regular
user
accounts that use a password for those users that you want to have
limited
access to the operating system. Unfortunately there are far too many
programs that will not work unless the user is also in the local
administrators group though I am not sure if your Corel program is one of
them.

Steve

Steve, You misunderstood. I did not say I was using the default
built-in
Administrators Account. You are absolutely correct in how dangerous and
even
foolish that would be. No, I said the my main account, the one I used
to
enable the Guest Account is "an" administrator account. Big difference.
Thanks for enabling your built in admin account to see if you could
recreate
the problem you thought I was having. I have two computers networked,
both
with user accounts with identical passwords for networking. I have NTFS
permissions, have disabled the Simple File Sharing, but have not as yet
done
any intricate shares other than just allowing access to my fiance's and
my
documents. That is the only share I have created since setting up the
network. I enabled the guest account so my son could use the computer
to
play
games during a recent visit. This was when I discovered the "access
denied"
error along with the Corel photo program attempting to install. I read
a
previous post regarding a simular situation and the response was
sometimes
software does not have proper permissions to run under the Guest
Account
and
the person suggested contacting the manufacturer and seeing if this may
cause
this problem.

Now, I was finally able to get connectivity on the Guest Account on my
other
networked computer. It was not anything I did, just this morning it
worked.
There was an error, but it did not give me a chance to write it down. I
will
see if it replicates next time I open it. At this point I don't know
what
to
do other than wait for the replication of the other computer I just
mentioned
and contact Corel about this program not having permissions to run with
the
Guest Account. Thanks for responding to my problems. Sorry about the
misunderstandings regarding what type of account I was using. I am not
any
where close to an expert, but I am not a complete beginner now either.
I
have
a LOT to learn, and really appreciate all the help you and others here
provide. Thank you for your time, have a nice evening. I will post
again
when
I get this worked out or if I come up with something new to describe.
Bye,
Seree
--
seree


:

Hi Seree.

Thanks for the very detailed information! I personally never use the
built
in administrator account because enabling it on XP Pro can be a
security
vulnerability as it will allow access to shares that have everyone
permissions to for share and folder/NTFS permissions. But just to see
I
enabled it and was able to access the internet right away without a
problem
as I thought it would work and I noticed that guest could not see any
connections in networking properties just as you described though I
did
have
networking connectivity. Network configuration is configured at the
"computer" level by an administrator and will then work for any user
that
logs onto the computer assuming no software firewall is applying user
specific settings. However the connection settings in IE can vary per
user
and if proxy settings are enabled in advanced settings that can cause
access
problems for IE. I am still curious if you can create another user
account
and logon with that account and access the internet? I also wonder if
you
were able to ping or do ipconfig /all for the guest account and what
the
results were though I believe you mentioned that you get access denied
errors when you try that as the guest account.

If that is the case that leads me to believe that some process,
possibly
an
internet "protection" or spyware/malware program, is locking down the
guest
account and preventing your access to it even as administrator. If
that
is
the case then booting into Safe Mode with networking may bypass such
restrictions. Otherwise if an application is doing such lockdown you
will
need to logon as administrator and undo those restrictions if that is
what
is happening. You also could try using runas to run commands while
logged
on
as guest to do ping and ipconfig /all which are needed to establish
basic
network connectivity.

Having said all that again I do not recommend using the built in guest
account on your computers but instead create another user account that
by
default will not be in the administrators group and use that account
for
a
user that you want to use the computer without advanced privileges.
Best
practice is to create a user account for each user that logs onto the
computer. Then each user will have their own profile that can
customize
the
way they want and the security log will track logon/logoff activity of
the
users. You as administrator then can use NTFS permissions to specify
which
folders a user can access and which applications they can run.

My bottom line here is that normally the built in guest account when
enabled
is not restricted to network connectivity, further testing needs to be
done
to determine is basic network connectivity exists for guest account
and
if
an application or process is interfering with normal access of the
guess
account and administrator account but having said that I strongly
recommend
that you do not use the built in guest account [keep it disabled] but
instead create other user accounts that are not also administrators.

Steve

Good morning Steve, Thanks for responding. I only have a little time
this
morning. First, I am not a complete beginner. I am self taught via
books
from
Microsoft Press such as Windows XP Inside Out by Ed Bott and others,
other
books, Microsoft resourses, etc. The "Guest" account I am referring
to
IS
the
Guest account, not a limited user account. I have a great Internet
Security
Suite--Panda, there is no Viruses, spyware or other malware on
either
computer. I have not had time to ping in the Guest Account in my
other
computer as yet, I can't in "MY" computers Guest Account due to the
"Access
Denied" situation. I am unable to do anything in that Guest account.
I
was
woondering if the "Access Denied" may have something to do with the
Corel
photo program attempting to install in "My" Guest account. "MY"
referring
to
my computer, the other is my fiance's computer. Sorry if that was
not
made
clear my having two computers both with problems with the Guest
Account.

I first enabled the Guest Account on my computer. It came up with
the
access
denied, with the Corel Photo program attempting to install
underneath.

Let me tell you a bit about these two computers. The are both XP
Pro-Actually Media Edition 2005. "Mine" is a Dell Dimension 5150,
Intel
Pentium D 820-2.8 Ghz, 4 Gigs RAM, 300 SATA Hard drive, ATI video
card,
Radean X600 256MB Hypermemory, six months old. The other computer is
my
fiance's. It is a 3 month old HP Pavilion a1445n, Pentium D 820-2.8
Ghz, 1
Gig RAM, 200 Gig Hard drive with RAID, NVIDA G Force 62000SE
TurboCache
Video card 256 MB. We have a wireless network with the Belkin Pre-N
Router
and the corresponding Belkin Adapters. The Network has been
functioning
fine
except for a few drops once in a while which I need to address with
Belkin
soon. That is a seperate issue. Just thought I would throw it in as
it
does
cause problems occasionally and I thought I should mention it just
in
case
you are aware of anything which it may relate to here that I don't
know. I
have configured the Router at 192.168.2.1 in the browser setup page.
I