Lost Administator Priviledges or something (Vista)

I tried to install a file (.msi) and I got an error message which said that "the system administrator has set policies to prevent this installation. I looked online for solutions and was told to change settings under administrative tools -> local security settings, but I found that there is no "local security settings" under administrative tools. As I began trying different things, I realized that my comp was being really funny and wouldn't allow me to do a lot of things. For example, if I try to run msconfig, I get "the service cannot accept control messages at this time". I have no idea what that means, but I have also gotten that message when trying to open some stuff up under the control panel? I looked around the threads and found some XP stuff but nothing for Vista with this specific (as vaguely as I described it) problem. Thanks in advance for any replies.

 

Whoa, this reads like some kind of malware infection.

Read this page carefully, follow all instructions for your Windows version and note any error messages/problems as you work through the list. When you've finished running everything and collected all the required logs, if you're still having any problems, make a new thread in the Malware forum and describe your issues and attach the logs. The folks there will diagnose and fix any remaining malware problems you might have.