cannot install anything (even administrator)

[[email protected]]

I found a Win7 i5 laptop in a rubbish bin, it has no scratches or beverage spills.
I ran memory and disk tests, it seems fine. Then ran ophcrack to login.
It seems to be a company-supplied laptop: has only Office 2010 (volume license),
VNC, Skype, Bitdefender installed thereon. It also attempts to connect to a
corporate cloud server after booting.
I delete all the spreadsheets, e-mails, and other guff.
Now I cannot install anything on this. If I run a setep programs, you
get the box popup asking do you wish to allow this program make changes.
I click yes, but it immediately vanishes and nothing in installed.
The account has administrator priveleges.
So I wonder has this machine been locked down to prevent employees
installing unapproved programs? Is there some registry key one can set
to prevent installs, even by admin accounts?

[JJ[_11_]]

On Sun, 25 Dec 2016 21:40:27 -0800 (PST), wrote:
> I found a Win7 i5 laptop in a rubbish bin, it has no scratches or beverage spills.
> I ran memory and disk tests, it seems fine. Then ran ophcrack to login.
> It seems to be a company-supplied laptop: has only Office 2010 (volume license),
> VNC, Skype, Bitdefender installed thereon. It also attempts to connect to a
> corporate cloud server after booting.
> I delete all the spreadsheets, e-mails, and other guff.
> Now I cannot install anything on this. If I run a setep programs, you
> get the box popup asking do you wish to allow this program make changes.
> I click yes, but it immediately vanishes and nothing in installed.
> The account has administrator priveleges.
> So I wonder has this machine been locked down to prevent employees
> installing unapproved programs? Is there some registry key one can set
> to prevent installs, even by admin accounts?

It could be locked down. It could be borked also. There's no way to know
without inspecting the system.

Windows laptops usually has a backup partition to reset the OS installation
to its initial state (whether it's preinstalled with additional softwares or
not), in case the OS is borked. If it's there and you don't mind having the
chance of loosing any installed software, you might want try resetting the
OS. But I don't know if the process requires a Windows product key or not.

[Paul in Houston TX[_2_]]

wrote:
> I found a Win7 i5 laptop in a rubbish bin, it has no scratches or beverage spills.
> I ran memory and disk tests, it seems fine. Then ran ophcrack to login.
> It seems to be a company-supplied laptop: has only Office 2010 (volume license),
> VNC, Skype, Bitdefender installed thereon. It also attempts to connect to a
> corporate cloud server after booting.
> I delete all the spreadsheets, e-mails, and other guff.
> Now I cannot install anything on this. If I run a setep programs, you
> get the box popup asking do you wish to allow this program make changes.
> I click yes, but it immediately vanishes and nothing in installed.
> The account has administrator priveleges.
> So I wonder has this machine been locked down to prevent employees
> installing unapproved programs? Is there some registry key one can set
> to prevent installs, even by admin accounts?

Most company computers have a group policy. Research how to remove it.
You will likely need to remove the domain, also.
Start here:
http://superuser.com/questions/379908/how-to-clear-or-remove-domain-applied-group-policy-settings-after-leaving-the-do