I have been trying to fix a friends Dell dimension 2350 with XP Home. It seems that something or someone has messed up the security rights. The first problem was trying to uninstall Zonealarm 5.0, it kept saying I didn't have access to change system configurations. I logged on as all three administrator users as well as the administrator in Safe Mode, no one had access. I re-installed and activated XP Home to no avail.
I finally read somewhere to right click on HKey_Local_Machine\software\Zonealarm and check the permissions. (Nothing was checked fo any of the administrator users, so i allowed and then I coul uninstall).
Then Live Update wasn't installed correctly so i was told to uninstall it, which of course it wouldn't allow me so I finally downloaded an uninstaller at Symantec and uninstalled it, but the file: C:\documents and settings\all users\symantec\liveupdate\settings.liveupdate refused to be deleted as the directions said not even at Safe Mode Command Prompt for the supervisor. I have found something at Microsoft for resetting the security to the original (secedit), except it is only for XP Pro. Anyone have any ideas for getting the security back for these users short of a format and re-install?