Newly built Windows Server 2008 R2 server on VM had strange issues. I logged in as account that’s part of domain admins. I supposed to have local administrative privileges. But when try to open any administrative tools (like services, event log), I get this error message:
Windows cannot access the specified device, path, or file. You may not have the appropriate permissions to access the item
It was driving me crazy. It turn out to be I can’t logon as local administrator either.
After half day of itching my mind, the following two things resolved the my issue.
- Turned off Internet Explorer Enhanced Security setting for Administrators and Users
- Turned off User Account Control (in Safe Mode)
Bizarre experience though!
Anand, the Architect 
wow this worked thanks for the post
http://www.computerperformance.co.uk/Longhorn/server_2008_uac_user_account_control.htm
This was a life saver
Same problem, same solution.
Thanks for the tip!
thanks worked for me half a day lost…..
Thanks a lot. It worked for me as well.
Thx god, You just saved my week, I’ve been working on this problem for two days.
I had that error as well because, since I was in a virtual environment (Vmware) I thought i’ll just have download install and update one server then make a full copy of it to save time, good idea but before you use the other, do a sysprep on it, because otherwise both of your servers will have the same SSID and wont work together.
Thank you for the tip.
Thanks m8! Life saver indeed 😉
It wasn’t work above option, however when i disabled Symantec then it worked.