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How to fix ‘System error 5 has occurred.’

Windows restricts privileged commands to be executed only from elevated administrator command prompt. Even if you are an administrator on the PC, you may run into the error ‘System error 5 has occurred. Access is denied’.

C:\>net user techblogger /add
System error 5 has occurred.
Access is denied.

To fix the issue, open elevated command prompt and run the same command.

How to open elevated administrator command prompt

Now the command would run fine.

C:\Windows\system32>net user techblogger /add
The command completed successfully.
C:\Windows\system32>

There could be other cases where one runs into this error. If you have got this error, let us know what was the instance and how you could fix it.

22 comments… add one
  • Phil Alley

    But how can you do this with a batch file?

  • henok

    i dont remember the admin password and i tried to access it from the guest account ………..net user administrator …..and it says system error 5 occured what should i do

  • Amanda Lee

    On win 7 (and others), this needs to be run under a elevated privs command prompt. You could right click and Run as administrator or open a command prompt in this way (run as..)
    Sometimes, even if you run it as admin, Windows will still prompt you with the error. You might need to log-in as admin or edit your account to have administrative privilege.
    https://www.errorsolutions.tech/error/system-error-5-has-occurred/
    Solution 1. Log-in as Administrator

  • Fidel Banhan

    I can not run cmd as admin because the administrator account appears and requires me its password.

  • Dinesh

    Guys! Even though I tried using that command in the command prompt of administrative privilege still its saying system error 5

    • Raghu

      Am also facing issue in windows 10; any resolution you got even after running with privileged admin prompt

  • bahre

    how can i get the admins password

    • yyy

      It has no password, you only type net user Administrator /active:yes and its done

  • Aniruddha Kulkarni

    I am trying to create a mapped drive on Windows 10 using following command

    mkdir “D:\ABC\
    Net Share ABC=D:\ABC /GRANT:Everyone,Full
    net use M: \\%ComputerName%\ABC

    I get : System error 5 has occurred. Access is denied

    My CMD is already in elevated mode as suggested by you. But when I launch CMD in normal mode the drive gets created and mapped properly.
    Facing this issue only on Windows 10 with CMD running as administrator

    Please help.

    • juan beroes

      me too , mine requires a username and password

  • zawar ahmad

    i need to stop windows updates service wuauserv and i keep getting access denied even with the elevated cmd any suggestions ????

  • boomboom

    it doesnt work

    • Srini

      What was the command you were trying to run?

  • Ahmed Fatehy

    Hi SRINI, you forget first to run CMD Command prompt as Administrator,
    Start>All Programes>Accessories> then Right-Click on Command Prompt> Run as administrator.

    • chee

      whenever i use the run as admin it gives me the fricking password

  • Ahmed Fatehy

    SRINI, Thank you so much :)

  • Raghu

    I have installed tacacs server in win10 .

    When tried to start service using powershell as below:
    net start tacacs.net

    getting below error:

    net : System error 5 has occurred.
    At line:1 char:1
    + net start tacacs.net
    + ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo : NotSpecified: (System error 5 has occurred.:String) [], RemoteException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : NativeCommandError

    Access is denied.

  • Tran Quang Anh

    still cannot work, im on win 7: net user administrator /active:yes

  • T Master

    Windows 10 fix for this error.
    Right click on the Task bar along the bottom and open Task Manager
    Click File, Run new task
    Type powershell and tick the box for Admin privs
    Run the command in the powershell window.

    • friend

      I can’t access Task master, any ideas on what to do? I also can’t run as administrator bc I don’t know the password

  • Dan

    I was already in elevated command prompt. I was trying to create a mapped network drive but I get access denied in my computer screen.

  • Janadhi Uynahewa

    Thank you so much. The path you guided solved my issue.

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