Windows – Server Admin has insufficient rights to add SYSTEM DSN. Why

dsnSecuritywindows 7

My Logon ID is in the Administrator Group for a server. Yet, when I run bring up the ODBC Data Source Administrator by launching it as the Administrator and navigate to the SYSTEM Data Source tab, I get the following error:

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ODBC System DSN Warning
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You are logged on with non-Administrative privileges. System DSNs could not be created or modified
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OK   
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I need to be able to create a SYSTEM DSN, not a User DSN. Any idea why I cannot or what I need to do to be abvle to create one?

Update

when I said I launched the ODBC Administrator as the Admin, I was referring to launching the following program:

C:\Windows\System32\odbcad32.exe

However, I realized that I wanted to create a DSN for a 32 bit driver, so I then launched the following program:

C:\Windows\SysWOW64\odbcad32.exe

I was then able to access the System DSN tab w/o receiving an error and create the necessary DSNs.

When I then re-launched the 64-bit version (C:\Windows\System32\odbcad32.exe) I was able to access the SYSTEM DSN tab WITHOUT seeing the "you don't have Admin rights" error that I previously saw.

…Which still confuses me why I saw it in the first place.

Sigh… I'll never understand it any better than Microsoft does.

Best Answer

Probably this is due to a UAC prompt that is not brought all the way through the ODBC admin app. Try to launch C:\Windows\System32\odbcad32.exe from a Command Prompt (Admin).

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