Windows 11 - Restrictions

erazor51 · 20 Jan 2023 at 02:08

When trying to access Device Manager, Disk Management, Services etc (I assume other apps too) I am getting the following errors. Has anyone encountered this? Any possible fix?

Thanks

Murphy · 20 Jan 2023 at 06:30

Someone has set group policies on the machine, assuming it's not your work admin and you're not joined to a domain you'll need to check what policies have been set either through gpedit.msc or, as I'm going to guess that's been blocked, via regedit.exe by checking the "Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer" key to see if there's a value or key under it called "DisallowRun".

If you want to be thorough, also i can't remember if program restrictions only apply in the user context, you can search the entire registry for "DisallowRun" using something like NirSoft's RegScanner.

erazor51 · 20 Jan 2023 at 10:48

Murphy said:
Someone has set group policies on the machine, assuming it's not your work admin and you're not joined to a domain you'll need to check what policies have been set either through gpedit.msc or, as I'm going to guess that's been blocked, via regedit.exe by checking the "Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer" key to see if there's a value or key under it called "DisallowRun".

If you want to be thorough, also i can't remember if program restrictions only apply in the user context, you can search the entire registry for "DisallowRun" using something like NirSoft's RegScanner.

Thanks for your help on this. I checked regedit and DisallowRun was set to 1. I changed it to 0, restarted the PC and everything is working now.

It is my personal machine and not tied to any work domain. However, I had Office 365 logged in with my work email as it has an active license. Could this be the reason? I don't see why logging into Office would do that, it would be strange if it did. Also before I changed DisallowRun from 1 to 0 I logged out of my work account from office 365 to see if it changed anything but still got the same error.

Murphy · 20 Jan 2023 at 10:58

IDK much at all about how Office 365 interacts with the local machine so sorry to say but i couldn't say if it did it.

erazor51 · 20 Jan 2023 at 11:26

No worries, thanks for your help. I'm glad that fixed the issue.

Before I posted here I tried the following:

- DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth
- sfc /scannow
- Windows reinstall with the option to keep data and apps

Obviously, none of that worked, and wasted a lot of time doing it.

mrk · 20 Jan 2023 at 13:41

If you logged into your work's 365 account and your work has a remote policy for security etc then yes certain functions may well be applied to the signed into machine. You may need to sign back into the work account and let it sync after telling your work IT to remove your machine from their remote policy - It's been some years so can't recall the exact steps but essentially they should advise accordingly.