Got not sufficient privileges message in CMD when logged on as administrator

Question

I was trying to use mklink command in cmd (I have Windows 7 OS) I was logged on as administrator, but I got:

You do not have sufficient privilege to perform this operation.

I used the same command in Vista, it worked OK. Any ideas why it does not work in Windows 7?

score 38 · Answer 1 · edited Sep 19 '20 at 08:41

38

Try explicitly running the CMD shell as administrator. If that doesn't help, then try the runas command.

runas /user:administrator "mklink args"

Quotes around the mklink command and its arguments are required.

edited Sep 19 '20 at 08:41

wasif

9,176

answered Apr 09 '10 at 19:38

Michael Pryor

2,636

score 16 · Answer 2 · edited Sep 19 '20 at 08:42

16

Type CMD, you will see CMD.exe in the list at start menu.

Right click on it, select "Run as Administrator"

edited Sep 19 '20 at 08:42

wasif

9,176

answered Jan 08 '12 at 19:30

Eric Yin

369

score 15 · Answer 3 · edited Sep 19 '20 at 08:42

In response to this not working for administrator accounts, I believe that Configuring symlink support in Windows 7 is relevant.

After giving “Everyone” the privilege “Create symbolic link”, please reboot (or log off) and log in as a standard user, a user who is NOT a member of group “Administrators”. You should be able to create a symbolic link using mklink command in a directory where user has write permissions.

The reason a member of “Administrators” cannot create symbolic link is because “Create symbolic link” privilege is removed from the filtered token since user is a member of “Administrators” group. Section “Access Token Changes” of article at link http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb530410.aspx describes in more details on how filtered token is created.

score 11 · Answer 4 · edited Sep 19 '20 at 08:44

11

If, for some reason, you cannot elevate your account to an administrator (eg. you're on a work computer), and you're trying to link a directory, try creating a junction instead of a hard/soft symbolic link. The source folder can be absolute or relative.

mklink /J linkedfolder sourcefolder

edited Sep 19 '20 at 08:44

wasif

9,176

answered Mar 27 '18 at 23:37

hughes

1,792

score 11 · Answer 5 · edited Sep 19 '20 at 08:44

First, make sure you've granted the "Create symlinks" permission to the relevant users, as detailed here.

Bizarrely, the mklink command will not work for me if my user is an administrator. It gives:

You do not have sufficient privilege to perform this operation.

To make it work, I then need to either remove my user from the administrators group, or run mklink from a cmd which has been run as a non-Administrator user such as guest:

runas /user:guest cmd

(Enable the guest account if it isn't already)

Using this latter method, you'll also have to temporarily grant permissions for 'guest' account to modify the location you're creating the Symbolic link in, which in my case was my home directory, causing a flurry of error dialogs, but they seemed harmless.

score 1 · Answer 6 · answered Sep 19 '20 at 08:47

1

In a WIN+R (Run.....) box, type cmd and hit CTRL+SHIFT+ENTER to run Command Prompt as Administrator.

answered Sep 19 '20 at 08:47

wasif

9,176

score 0 · Answer 7 · edited Mar 21 '21 at 16:15

0

Run "CMD" Command Prompt with "Administrator Privileges":

Start > Search for CMD
Right Click and chose "Run as Administrator"
Click Yes on "Do you want to allow this app to make changes to your device?"

And run you command again.

edited Mar 21 '21 at 16:15

Chaos_99

1,008

answered Mar 09 '21 at 13:33

Muhammad Zaman

1

score 0 · Answer 8 · edited Sep 19 '20 at 08:45

0

Check to see the "Secondary logon" service isn't disabled.

edited Sep 19 '20 at 08:45

wasif

9,176

answered Feb 15 '11 at 12:39

surfasb

22,896

score -3 · Answer 9 · edited Sep 19 '20 at 08:45

-3

If not installed, please consider installing Microsoft.NET framework 2.0 or the service packs that go with it.

It worked for me!

edited Sep 19 '20 at 08:45

wasif

9,176

answered Jan 15 '15 at 10:05

Jukmister

1

Got not sufficient privileges message in CMD when logged on as administrator

9 Answers9

Linked

Related