Windows 7 Can't install or run any programs...

Mirth

New Member
A friend of mine called me over because he was having troubles, and it seems that I cannot run any program (Firefox, avast antivirus, EVERYTHING) and I tried putting malwarebytes on his computer, which I had the install file on my USB drive, it wouldn't open up and install boxes whatsoever.

On top of that, I have a Portable Antivirus on my USB drive that is run directly from my USB drive, but double clicking it would not open up anything.

I looked at his "Services" and a lot of them are disabled. When I tried to turn on his avast antivirus service, it says access denied. I looked under Computer Management -> Users -> and went to his account, and his account is Enabled.

I tried all of these in Safe mode too. There are no odd looking programs and no odd looking startup services or programs under MSCONFIG.

I ran AVG rescue disk from a CD on boot and it did not find any viruses.

Lastly, I had my computer with me at the time and downloaded a DEFAULT EXE reg file, which supposedly restores the file associations back to normal for .exe files. I ran that but it didn't do anything.

He doesn't have his Windows 7 disk anymore, so I can't run a Repair on it.

I've literally run out of ideas on what to do next. I'm hoping some of you have suggestions. Remember, he can't go on the internet to download anything, can't run anything already on there, and can't install anything.
 
hello

firstly id try and boot in safe mode, .. start pc hold F8, select safe mode, see if you can boot up there. if most of the services are disasabled then this is why things might not work. id go back in to msconfig, and click normal startup under the general tab
 
I mentioned in my first post that I have tried all of that in both safe mode as well as normal mode. But I thank you for your reply anyhow. :) I'm still befuddled on what to try next...
 
id double check if his account is an adminstrator or not.. if hes getting access denied then maybe its a standard account
 
It shows him as being under the administrator group, so he should be getting all the correct privileges.

Edit: He said he just started to reformat to reinstall Windows, so I guess I don't need any more suggestions, haha.
 
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