Windows 7 Unable to elevate on Windows 7 RC

[jonharvie]

I need some help. I'm unable to elevate on Windows 7 RC. When I click on a shield icon nothing happens. If I run a command line tool such as 'regedit' that requires elevation from a command prompt it displays a message box that reads "The system could not find the environment option that was entered". I have also noticed that serveral of the utiltiies that contain paths such as "%windir%\system32\" do not work as they are unable to resolve %windir%. It seems that WINDIR is no longer registered as an environment variable on my system. This is confirmed by using SET from the command line but without access to regedit I can't make any permanant changes.

The last time it was working, I had just changed some custom environment variables. My best guess is that something got corrupted when writing out the updated environment variables. Those custom environment variables are working as expected. I don't know have any idea why WINDIR disappeared or if WINDIR is the only thing preventing elevation from working.

The user account is on a domain, however when I tried a local account on this same computer it had the exact same problem so it must be a system setting, not a per user setting.

 

[davehc]

If I understand you correctly. You should not be running items such as Regedit from a command prompt. Just type it in the search box, or enable "Run" in the start menu and run it from there.
%xxxx% works fine for me, by the way.

 

[jonharvie]

Running 'regedit' in the seach box does the same thing and it too doesn't work currently.

I suspect the only solution is to go back to a prior restore point and hope that fixes the problem.

 

[davehc]

Have you tried it in the "RUN" box?

 

[jonharvie]

Run didn't help either.

I was able to recover the system by restoring an old restore point. I had to boot from the install DVD to do it because elevation wasn't working but the system is back up.