Win 10 Admin account unable to change permissions

Question

I've recently picked up a refurbished PC but have found some oddities with permissions despite being an administrator which have persisted after a reset of windows.

Any new folders are automatically read-only and while it appears to allow me to disable it in properties it changes back when the window is closed.

I'm also unable to open any windows apps including the store and received a 0x80070005 access denied error when attempting to install the xbox app directly from an installer but other non-microsoft software has installed and worked normally.

Answer 1

I've recently picked up a refurbished PC but have found some oddities

There could be a number of things wrong.

A properly operating Windows 10 Administrator's Account can change permission, use the Microsoft Store and use Microsoft Apps.

The best approach for a computer that came this way is to back up and data and email you have and reinstall Windows.

Easiest approach since Windows is running is to use the Media Creation Link.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

Windows 10/11 is running, so click on the Download button (not Upgrade Button) and select Run. This will launch the Repair. Proceed normally answering the prompts. Use the option to Keep Nothing and then you will start again.

Answer 2

Open computer management, go to users and find the built-in microsoft administrator account. Right click it and set password:

Now the password is set, right click the administrator account again and go properties. Untick the box that says "Account is disabled" and Apply > OK

Now sign out of your current user and sign in to the administrator account. A sure way to get into it would be to type localhost\administrator into the username field. Test out whatever actions you want to see if you have the desired permissions within this account here, and if yes proceed to the next steps.

Inside the administrator account go to the run menu and type control userpasswords2

This will open the area where you can add or remove new users on your system.

Select "Add" to create a new user and proceed to create a new local user on your system. After it has been created click on "Properties" and change it to be a member of the "Administrators group".

Now sign out of the Microsoft built-in administrator account and sign in as your newly created user. Be sure to go back to computer management and disable the Microsoft administrator account as it should be for the sake of security.

Your new user should in theory work as desired. If it does not then you'll want to rebuild with a new windows installation from scratch.