"Process Not Elevated"

Hi guys!
I'm writing from my mom's laptop as I visit her for Christmas. She has been complaining her laptop was really slow and crashing, so I have done scans, defragmented, etc. However, when I was attempting to update her Adobe Flash Player in Firefox, I received an odd error message from "HOST" that said, "Process not Elevated." Very odd. I've never seen it before.

I did remove some weird adware from her PC, but MBAM says it's clear now, so I doubt it's related, but I have no idea. Maybe it's Firefox?? Maybe her laptop is just having issues? Any ideas?? I'm headed to bed shortly, but would appreciate any help/feedback you might have.

She runs
Windows Vista, Service Pack 2
Firefox v. 3.6.13

Thanks in advance!

 

I've stumped YOU? That's kinda amazing. I should earn some kind of silly badge or something. Hehe.

I did run the SAS and that only has found a couple tracking cookies. I'm going to try that tomorrow when it's not almost 5 a.m. Haha. I'll never get used to this time change in Missouri.

A new problem that I am running into is that her system keeps freezing or "hanging" and not doing anything, nor responding to anything. I have to do a "hard kill" to shut it down by holding down the power button. It freezes when the screensaver comes on, when the laptop goes to sleep mode, and when I'm running scans (even if I'm only a few minutes into the scan and it's not even turned on the screensaver yet). So, it's very difficult to run a complete scan of ANYTHING, much less simply use her PC. She has been complaining to me about this for quite some time now, but I live on the other side of the country and didn't realize it was actually this bad.

Thanks for your reply and I will try your ideas and post my results after.

 

Argh! I tried to install the tweaking.com tool and like everything else - I can't get it to work. I've attached a screenshot of the error message... (It doesn't say WHY it can't install it.)

Time for bed.

 

For the Tweaking.com repair tool, try the portable version.
http://www.majorgeeks.com/Tweaking.com_-_Windows_Repair_Portable_d7222.html

 

Are you certain that the message was from HOST?

Also Tweaking.com repair updated, new portable version
http://majorgeeks.com/Tweaking.com_-_Windows_Repair_Portable_d7222.html

 

One thought is between the "not elevated" and the inability to write to the "Program Files" folder, I wonder if the account you are using has limited privileges rather than administrative privileges. Go to Control Panel and User Accounts and double check that you are using an admin account.

 

Firefox is seriously out of date. The latest version is 3.6.24 so 11 updates of that are missing.
See if you can update the browser http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/all-older.html
and maybe some of the other apps won't complain, provided you are using an admin account.

 

Thank you everyone!

So, I was able to run the portable version of the tweaking.com tool. I honestly don't know if it worked or not. I updated Firefox, but the only version it would let me download and install was not 3.6.34, but was 8.0.1. Is that okay?

I tried to install CC Cleaner (Love this program, I use it on my Windows 7 laptop at home, too), and it says I need to be logged into her computer as an administrator. I don't know what to do differently because she only has one account and it says it IS an administrator. I'll attach a screenshot of the UAC screen, too. (I really dislike Vista.)

I'm also attaching a screenshot of the errors I get when attempting to install the CC Cleaner. No idea if any of this is helpful, but I figure that the more information I submit to you, the better the chance you guys might be able to help me! (Btw, thanks for the tweaking.com video tutorial.)

Oh, one last thing, I also can't access "Documents and Settings" because it says access is denied. I'm wondering if others are right - it's a User Control setting, but then how do I change it if it shows she's already an admin? Ugh. I feel like I've opened up a can of worms. Oh, and as you might remember, I can't update her Flash Player, either (which is what started this thread).

 

Right click the program and choose "run as administrator"

My experience with tweaking.com was horrendous.
It took over 2 hours to get my computer back online.
I used the basic setting.
I had to completely reinstall the router settings after trying system restore.

Would not recommend tweaking.com to my worst enemy.

 

See if you can create another Administrator account. If you can, see if you experience the same issues when logged into the new account.

 

Do try this suggestion.
Also take a look in C:\Users folder. Do you see any folders with strange names that would indicate that you are running as a temporary user due to a corrupt profile--such as Owner8888 or such?

 

Thank you! I had to go to the folder where I downloaded the program(s) and then I clicked RUN AS ADMINISTRATOR and it worked.

As for the tweaking.com tool, it didn't seem to make a positive or negative difference on the functioning of this laptop. Hmm....

I apologize, but I'm not sure how to do that???

I will attach a picture of what I see when I do that. (Looks like hidden files are showing.) I don't think anything looks unusual...

@All....Well, I still can't run a scan without the computer freezing. I even tried running MBAM in SAFE MODE and it froze after 6 minutes. Nothing will fully scan without freezing the computer. My mom also says that while she is playing games online, it sometimes freezes and she can only use the power button to shut it down completely.

As for memory issues, she doesn't do much on this laptop, so she has loads of memory, and she uses a cooling fan as well and the laptop seems to stay fairly cool.

Her free space is 253 GB out of the 289 GB capacity.

Any more thoughts? I'm only at her house until the 30th when I return to California.

(Running as Administrator allowed me to install the latest flash player and also to update her Firefox.)

 

I don't see anything unusual in the Users folder. I'd create a new user as a test just to rule out a problem with the current profile.

Should just be Control Panel then select User Accounts and then Manage another Account. Then Create a New Account. Type in a name and make sure you select to make it an Administrator.

Sign in to the new accoun, and try to run a scan or some other program that you can't run on the usual account. See if there is any difference.

 

Thank you, Sach2! I'll give that a try and will post back here. Appreciate your reply!

 

before trying to create a new user account, Try to right click the downloaded program in the same user account and got to properties.

""This file came from another computer and might be blocked to help protect this computer" - Click on unblock.

Hope it helps.

 

I've had the same issue... but on a fresh install of Windows 7. Chrome had it included, so i was trying to download the version used for Steam's browser. There's absolutely no chance of malware, i just got it running yesterday. Nothing seems to be wrong with the install either.

 

Hi.
Had the same error message on a rather new W7 install.
My solution:
uninstall flash using the adobe flash uninstaller (http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/141/tn_14157.html)
reinstall with newest flash player (http://get.adobe.com/nl/flashplayer/)

greetz

 

Hey, thanks for the advice but it seems to have resolved itself. I tried again after restarting later, and it worked fine.

 

Hi
I had this issue on Win7 with IE but no chrome while trying to update adobe flash player. I started through basic trouble shooting then thought that perhaps I should try on my admin account as I was on my son's account and trying to update the flash player so that he could play club penguins. So, I changed user accounts to the admin account and, voila, when I tried to update flash player, there were no more issues. I guess it becomes "elevated" when you switch to the admin account.
Hope this helps everyone.
Have an awesome day