Solved Can no longer login to windows locally or online....help!

So I've been having endless issues since installing Windows 8 with ownership. In windows 7 I had controll of everything. In Windows 8, all that control was taken away. Slowly I started adding it back by taking ownership of all my drives. Only C drive was still giving me issues - when I tried to "Save As" a file it told me I did not have the privilage to do this...Even though I had full ownership.

So After googling around a bit more I found things people recommended trying.

1. Install a registry edit which added "Take ownership" to the right click menu. I am somewhat familiar with editing the registry so i reviewed the file before adding it and saw no issues with it. After installing it seemed to work fine.

2. Edit the secpol.msc and change a few settings. This is where I think I went wrong. I added myself to a couple of sections, however I noticed there were several Users with a random generated long name (I thought maybe a UUID, but it didnt look like a normal one?). It wasn't Admin or myslef, so I removed them from the security settings they had permissions for. I checked my Windows 7 notebook (one I am on now) first to make sure they wer enot common, and when I confirmed they were not on my Win7 PC I killed them. I didn't remove my user account or admin account, however.

3. Install "Unlocker" which unlocks files so you can remove/delete them.

So after doing these 3 things I restarted and the issues I get now are:
When I try and just sign in normally (username Dave, no password):



When I try and sign in as Administrator:


When I try and login using my online Account (I changed the password after the first time I got this error, but it still came up even with the new password).



Does anyone have an idea of how to get back in to Windows so I can fix this? I downloaded Win 8 via a promo (new PC and get windows 8 for $15) so I don't have media for it...

Would anyone be able to shed light on why this happened? Those random accounts that I deleted must have somehow been linked to my accounts, but I didn't touch or change any permissions revolving around Admin & my username (Dave)

Also for reference here is the registry edit that I added:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell\runas]
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell\runas]
@="Take Ownership"
"Icon"="C:\\Windows\\System32\\imageres.dll,-78"
"NoWorkingDirectory"=""
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell\runas\command]
@="cmd.exe /c takeown /f \"%1\" && icacls \"%1\" /grant administrators:F"
"IsolatedCommand"="cmd.exe /c takeown /f \"%1\" && icacls \"%1\" /grant administrators:F"
[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\runas]
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\runas]
@="Take Ownership"
"Icon"="C:\\Windows\\System32\\imageres.dll,-78"
"NoWorkingDirectory"=""
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\runas\command]
@="cmd.exe /c takeown /f \"%1\" /r /d y && icacls \"%1\" /grant administrators:F /t"
"IsolatedCommand"="cmd.exe /c takeown /f \"%1\" /r /d y && icacls \"%1\" /grant administrators:F /t"
[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\dllfile\shell]
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\dllfile\shell\runas]
@="Take Ownership"
"HasLUAShield"=""
"NoWorkingDirectory"=""
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\dllfile\shell\runas\command]
@="cmd.exe /c takeown /f \"%1\" && icacls \"%1\" /grant administrators:F"
"IsolatedCommand"="cmd.exe /c takeown /f \"%1\" && icacls \"%1\" /grant administrators:F"
[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Drive\shell\runas]
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Drive\shell\runas]
@="Take Ownership"
"Icon"="C:\\Windows\\System32\\imageres.dll,-78"
"NoWorkingDirectory"=""
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Drive\shell\runas\command]
@="cmd.exe /c takeown /f \"%1\" /r /d y && icacls \"%1\" /grant administrators:F /t"
"IsolatedCommand"="cmd.exe /c takeown /f \"%1\" /r /d y && icacls \"%1\" /grant administrators:F /t"

Unfortunately, there isn't much you are going to be able to do about this

For all,, never delete any the default accounts from anywhere.
You can add your own account and make changes to Ownership etc... but never change or delete default accounts unless you know for a fact it won't cause problems, chances are though, it will.

General Note: if you don't know what you are doing when you are taking ownership of anything,,, don't do it.
Never take ownership of the entire c: drive or Windows Folder

There are really only a couple of ways to fix this....

1.) Boot to the F8 screen and see if you can do a repair/restore ... if not...

2.) Run a full system refresh from there... if not able to...

3.) Reinstall Previous Version of windows using same key you did the upgrade with and you may be able to download the ISO again,,,, Keep A Back Up

4.) Call Microsoft and if you can prove you purchased the upgrade [DEL]they may tell you how you can download it from a different PC[/DEL], or, send you a disk for an additional fee.

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/13200-windows-8-upgrade-iso-redownload.html

If you can't log back in, you aren't going to fix it, and if you deleted Security Accounts and made changes to secpol then you will want to do a full reinstall anyway to fix what you broke. But hey, that's how we learn, it's what I have done since I started playing with PC's.

You could Maybe try a Windows Live CD and see what you can do, but with the type of changes you made, I would not even waste my time attempting it.

Also, Sometimes in Windows when you look at Security settings, the UID's do not translate properly.
You can try using PsGetSid in the future.

I think there is another app that is similar or what you need other than the one I posted. I forgot the name, it has been a long time since I thought about this type of issue. I think, but can't be sure it is this ,,, SidToName

EDIT / / UPDATE:
have done a reset on my primary HDD and started from scratch again.
Still have to go and give myself permission on all my HDDs because by default ownership belongs to "unknown account":
S-1-5-21-1242861541-3595680692-3451850221-1000
...
Seriously, though, why did Microsoft do this? Stop me from copying/pasting/anything on any of my drives, forcing me to go in to advanced security settings and manually take ownership of everything. I just...don't understand.

So I have gone in and added myself as a user with full control and become owner of everything.

-------------

Hi Tepid,

thanks for responding.

I tried step 1 & 2. I'm about to try reinstalling 8 again....

Whilst in recovery mode, I used the "Add drivers" section of the re-image to browse back in to my computer. The really weird thing is, all my disk letter assignments have changed. C drive is now H, F is X, etc.

I used the recovery command prompt to create a new user account called Dave1 to see if that would fix the issue but that did nothing.

I should have been more clear - I didn't actually delete any account. I only removed the permissions in the secpol. (under user rights assignment). I can't get my head around that just removing user rights assignments would completely destroy the accounts themselves, and rearrange my drive letters....lol

Also regarding not taking ownership, the major issue i have here is that I really only wanted the ability to copy files on to my C drive. For this to be inherently disabled just blew my mind. And for the fact that there was no possible way for me to resolve this, without going to unbelievably extreme measures is just not something I can get my head around. I can understand it is a good idea not to be able to edit system32, etc, but just for the root folder of C drive to be disabled is really asking for trouble. Power users like myself are going to want a way around this and it's going to end up in tears lol.

1.) Microsoft did not do anything but tighten security, The only places that will give you a warning or not let you save stuff is root of C: , Program Files (will warn) and Windows Folders

If you don't have access to writing to other drives that is not an MS issue. Sorry, but it's not, I have never had a problems with External or additional drive rights settings of any kind, ever.

Well-known security identifiers in Windows operating systems

hi Tepid,

Cheers for your response. I wish there was a way to fix this wtihout a reinstall but live and learn. But thanks for helping me sort this out.

With the new installation of Windows, ownership of C (primary), F, & G (secondary) HDDs belonged to "unknown account" S-1-5-21-1242861541-3595680692-3451850221-1000 by default.
Keeping in mind, this was a fresh install, overwriting everything. I didn't do an upgrade at this point - I just borrowed a Windows 8 DVD from work and used that to reinstall the OS.

Although you say it's not an MS issue and that you've never had problems with rights, keep in mind that we discover issues all the time that we were not familiar with. If I do a clean install of Windows 8, and put myself as the Administrator of the computer, I don't expect Microsoft to give all admin rights, on all drives, to an "unknown user". This stops being just a "security upgrade" when I am unable to copy/paste files from any location on my computer.
If you are interested, I can link you to other people having the same issues with secondary HDDS, My Documents/Pictures folders, etc, so you are able to see this is not just tightened security, but actually an issue that Microsoft is responsible for.
I don't hold MS accountable for me stuffing my computer up, but I am quite certain if they had not constrained my use of the computer so significantly that I had to go searching third party forums for fixes, this wouldn't have happened.

Thanks again for your assistance.

Dave

To elaborate further for those that might want further understanding..

Permissions are a convoluted mess. They are very confusing at times.
Even the most hardened administrators still get messed up by permissions.
Anyone anywhere who has to deal with them, knows this to be true.

So, when you reload a system, or reinstall/upgrade, permissions are not removed/replaced or deleted on external items.
They hold that information till something actually changes them, such as, a user, other application (this is rare and only depends on the needs of that application, or it's a virus), or moving/copying them from one location to another.

This can help....

What are ACL

How Permissions Work

And this one is probably the related one to this thread....

How permissions are handled when you copy and move files and folders

There are whole chapters written about permissions alone and that's before you even get to stuff like Group Polcies.

To elaborate further for those that might want further understanding..

Permissions are a convoluted mess. They are very confusing at times.
Even the most hardened administrators still get messed up by permissions.
Anyone anywhere who has to deal with them, knows this to be true.

So, when you reload a system, or reinstall/upgrade, permissions are not removed/replaced or deleted on external items.
They hold that information till something actually changes them, such as, a user, other application (this is rare and only depends on the needs of that application, or it's a virus), or moving/copying them from one location to another.

This can help....

What are ACL

How Permissions Work

And this one is probably the related one to this thread....

How permissions are handled when you copy and move files and folders

There are whole chapters written about permissions alone and that's before you even get to stuff like Group Polcies.

One final note,, be very careful about using Take Ownership,, you can break a whole lot of stuff by using it improperly.