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Windows Archives ⋆ SysAdminStuff

How to fix Vivaldi “Your profile could not be opened correctly” error.

When starting Vivaldi browser on your device, you might be getting a following error message shown:

Your profile could not be opened correctly

Some features may be unavailable. Please check that the profile exists and you have permission to read and write its contents.

In addition to that, you might be missing website icons on your bookmarks, or some other issues.

Vivaldi error
Vivaldi error message

This error can be caused by missing files or wrong permissions on your profile folders, and seems to be happening mostly on Linux machines, but can show on Windows devices also.

If you have not made any changes to your system, it could be caused by hung or frozen Vivaldi processes preventing the access to all the necessary data.

Check for multiple Vivaldi processes

Before making any changes to your profile files and folders, check for a possible stale processes using Task Manager.

Right click on your taskbar, and open Task Manager from the menu.

Go to Processes tab, and check if you have multiple Vivaldi processes shown there.

Right click on those processes, and click on End task, to kill the process.

Task Manager
Task Manager

After you have killed all the processes, try to reopen browser again, to check if you will still have any errors on application startup.

Helpful links:

https://vivaldi.net/en-US/forum/vivaldi-browser-for-linux/10903-profile-can-t-be-opened-correctly

https://vivaldi.net/en-US/forum/vivaldi-browser-for-linux/3775-your-profile-could-not-be-opened-correctly

 

 

How to enable Registry Editor, when it gets disabled

While checking the registry on my machine because of the issues I had with Task Manager, described in this post, I noticed that I was unable to start Registry Editor.

When trying to run regedit, I would get a message saying

“Registry editing has been disabled by your administrator”

Regedit Disabled
Disabled Registry Editor

Enable Registry Editor (regedit) in Local Group Policy with gpedit.msc

This can be changed by editing Local Group Policy with gpedit.msc.

Click Win+R keys to open Run dialog interface, and issue gpedit.msc command to open Local Group Policy Editor.

Navigate to:

User Configuration > Administrative Templates > System > Prevent access to registry editing tools.

Enable regedit in Group Policy
Enable Registry Editor in Group Policy

This should by default be set to Not Configured, which should not prevent you from starting Registry Editor.

It was set on Not Configured on my machine already, so I set it to Disabled, and this enabled back Registry Editor for me.

Interestingly, after returning the setting back to Not Configured, Registry Editor did not get disabled again.

This seems to have got disabled during installation of some drivers, and even do Local Group Policy was set on Not Configured, it seem some registry values were set to disable registry editing tools from running, and switching back between Enabled, and Not Configured seems to have return them to default values.

Alternate possible methods of enabling regedit.

Alternate method 1:

Click Start -> Run. Type this command in Run box and press Ok.

REG add HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System /v DisableRegistryTools /t REG_DWORD /d 0

A prompt should come up with this question:

Value DisableRegistryTools exists, overwrite (Y/N)?

Type yes and hit Enter.

After that, also type this command in the run box and hit enter.

REG add HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System /v DisableRegistryTools /t REG_DWORD /d 0

Then a prompt should come up with this question:

Value DisableRegistryTools exists, overwrite (Y/N)?

Type yes and hit Enter.

Alternate method 2:

STEP1. Disable as much as you can from your startup. Remove programs from your startup folder and such, so as not to lag down the boot process.

STEP2.Create a new shortcut on your desktop, point it to “C:\Windows\regedit.exe”

STEP3.Log off, then log back on.

STEP4.As soon as you see your desktop, double-click on the shortcut. The system does not check for policies until a few seconds after it booted up. If you click on the icon fast enough, it should let you get in.

After you close it though, it will not open unless you redo step 3 and 4.

Alternate method 3:

Get into the registry editor by making a vbs script in notepad:

Open Notepad and copy this script into it. And save it as regtool.vbs on your desktop.

VBS SCRIPT(select everything and copy into notepad and save as regtool.vbs):

Option Explicit 
'Declare variables 
Dim WSHShell, rr, rr2, MyBox, val, val2, ttl, toggle 
Dim jobfunc, itemtype 
On Error Resume Next 
Set WSHShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell") 
val = "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System\DisableRegistryTools" 
val2 = "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System\DisableRegistryTools" 
itemtype = "REG_DWORD" 
jobfunc = "Registry Editing Tools are now " 
ttl = "Result" 
'reads the registry key value. 
rr = WSHShell.RegRead (val) 
rr2 = WSHShell.RegRead (val2) 
toggle=1 
If (rr=1 or rr2=1) Then toggle=0 
If toggle = 1 Then 
WSHShell.RegWrite val, 1, itemtype 
WSHShell.RegWrite val2, 1, itemtype 
Mybox = MsgBox(jobfunc & "disabled.", 4096, ttl) 
Else 
WSHShell.RegDelete val 
WSHShell.RegDelete val2 
Mybox = MsgBox(jobfunc & "enabled.", 4096, ttl) 
End If

Open regtool.vbs ,and you should be able to access Registry Editor then.

References:

http://ccm.net/forum/affich-8895-regedit-is-disabled-by-the-administrator

How to enable grayed out Task Manager

I was installing drivers for a gamepad on my Windows 10 machine, and after the install I noticed that I was no longer able to use Task Manager, right clicking on taskbar, would show Task Manager line grayed out.

GrayTaskManager
Grayed out Task Manager

Trying to run it manually, through Run interface with Win+R, using taskmgr command would return a notice saying

“Task Manager has been disabled by your administrator”

TaskManagerDisabled
Task Manager Disabled
Enable Task Manager through Local Group Policy editor (gpedit.msc)

To enable Task Manager again, you can use Local Group Policy editor (gpedit.msc).

Press Win+R to reach Run interface, and issue gpedit.msc command to start Local Group Policy editor.

Once you open Local Group Policy editor, navigate to:

User Configuration > Admistrative Templates > System > Ctrl+Alt+Del Options > Remove Task Manager.

By default this is set to Not Configured, and this should leave Task Manager enabled.

Setting was already on Not Configured on my machine, so I set it to Disabled, and this enabled back Task Manager on my machine.

Interestingly, once I returned the setting back to Not Configured, it did not disable Task Manager.

Enable Task Manager in Group Policy
Enable Task Manager in Group Policy
Enable Task Manager through Registry Editor (regedit)

Besides editing Local Group Policy, you should also be able to enable back Task Manager by editing Windows registry.

Open Registry Editor by pressing Win+R to launch Windows Run interface, and issue regedit command to open Registry Editor.

Navigate to following keys:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System
HKEY_USERS\.default\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System

And check if any of them has DisableTaskMgr DWORD in the right side panel.

If it exists, it should have one of two values:

1 – Disable task manager
0 – Enable task manager

Double click and change the value to one if the key exists, or delete the key completely, to enable Task Manager back.

Enable Registry Editor (regedit)

While checking the registry on my machine, I also noticed that I was unable to start Registry Editor.

When trying to run regedit, I would get a message saying

“Registry editing has been disabled by your administrator”

RegeditDisabled
Disabled Registry Editor

This can be changed by editing Local Group Policy with gpedit.msc.

Click Win+R keys to open Run dialog interface, and issue gpedit.msc command to open Local Group Policy Editor.

Navigate to:

User Configuration > Administrative Templates > System > Prevent access to registry editing tools.

Enable Registry Editor in Group Policy
Enable Registry Editor in Group Policy

This should by default be set to Not Configured, which should not prevent you from starting Registry Editor.

It was set on Not Configured on my machine already, so I set it to Disabled, and this enabled back Registry Editor for me.

Interestingly, after returning the setting back to Not Configured, Registry Editor did not get disabled again.

References:

How to fix Task Manager has been disabled by your Administrator issue in Windows

http://ccm.net/forum/affich-8895-regedit-is-disabled-by-the-administrator

Cisco VPN client minimizes to taskbar immediately when opened

This is a repost of a post from an old blog, made on June 1, 2012, that used to be on:

http://adminramble.com/cisco-vpn-client-minimizes-taskbar-immediately-opened/

Original post:

I had some problems with Cisco VPN client 5.0.07 today, when I would start it, it would just go straight to taskbar, the window would stay minimized and wouldn’t open when I click on it. The only way to open it was to hover with the mouse pointer over the taskbar and then right-click the pop up window and click ‘Maximize’. I little time on Google and I found the solution to the problem.

The problem can be fixed by editing the vpnclient.ini file inside the “C:\Program Files\Cisco Systems\VPN Client” folder as is stated in one of the answers on this page.

Edit the following lines (if you have numbers bigger then 42949 like 4294916329 just delete everything but the first five numbers, and leave 42949, that worked for me.):
WindowX=42949
WindowY=42949
You can put smaller numbers in the values it will work also.
On Microsoft Answers someone also said that the problem can be the values of (they were 0 in my case but it they are also high numbers change them to 0:
LogWindowX=0
LogWindowY=0

How to make a bootable USB thumb drive with Windows, Linux or some other operating system or utility

This is a repost of a post from an old blog, made on December 16, 2012, that used to be on:

http://beginner.adminramble.com/bootable-usb-thumb-drive-windows-linux-operating-system-utility/

Original post:

In one of my previous posts I wrote how to put a Windows 7/8 installation on a USB stick with Windows 7 USB/DVD download tool.

Now I present you Universal USB installer.
It is a tool for an automatic creation of bootable USB installations or Live Linux distributions.
It supports a wide array of different Linux distributions and operating systems like Ubuntu, Mint, Debian, Backtrack, Fedora, OpenSUSE, CentOS, Windows Vista/7/8 and some rescue software and utilities like Hiren’s Boot CD, Ultimate Boot CD, DBAN and many others.

The program is very easy to use, you simply plug your USB stick in the computer, run the program, select the desired operating system or utility, select the location of the ISO file (you can also select to automatically download the unnecessary ISO file if you don’t have it) and select the drive letter of the USB stick which you want to make bootable.
With some OS like Ubuntu you will also have a option of setting the size of the persistence file so you can store changes you make to your OS.


Notice:
Program by default only shows you drive letters for external storage, but If you plug your USB stick after you have run the program, you won’t have the option of selecting it from drop-down menu in step 3, in that case you will either have to mark show all Drives option (be careful not to select the wrong letter), or start the program again.

You can download the program from here.