Hugh

I'm late to the party... If you haven't given up in disgust by now, do.  
Before that
a) If you can get to them, have you checked your cmd.exe's ACL file permissions (Properties - Security [select Administrators] - Advanced.  Anything odd there?  All should be ticked and greyed out, and so unchangeable.  Applies to ALL groups shown.  If user Administrator is (strangely) there, it might have been tampered with.  Try adding Administrator with all boxes ticked to the list...
b) copy and paste cmd.exe into another folder.  Create Administrator user give only Read'' rights to it.  Open Security tab untick 'Allow inheritable...' and agree to 'Remove'.  OK it and try to run it from that folder.  You'll see that 'access denied' message.  Open the ACL and give Administrator Full Control.  and carry on playing with it for a bit.
c) If above worked, copy that cmd.exe into c:\windows and try running cmd from Run box. It should work because C:|Windows' comes before 'C:\Windows\System32 in the PATH env. variable
d) If not.  Wipe the install and give yourself a fresh one.

Tell us if this helped.

BOL

ChrisM




>>> [log in to unmask] 06/07/2006 19:49:54 >>>
Dell Dimension, Win XP Pro
I get a "permission denied" message when trying to access cmd from the 
run line.
The account is an administrator. No joy in safe mode or logged in as 
administrator.
I tried a system restore, which didn't help.
Any suggestions will be appreciated.

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