Windows 7: Error 5 (access denied) when trying to start Volume Shadow Copy service (VSS)

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ioanna23

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System: Win 7 Ultimate x64 on an HP Pavilion DV6. My account is the only proper user account on the laptop and is an admin account.

When trying to do a system restore, it came up with an error that the Volume Shadow Copy Service was not working, though that error code is irrelevant for the purposes of this question as I later managed to run system restore in safe mode from an old restore point...

When trying to turn on VSS, I checked services.msc (which I ran as administrator) and VSS was off and was on manual. I tried clicking start, the following error came up:

"Windows could not start the Volume Shadow Copy service on Local Computer.
Error 5: Access is denied."

I then changed it to automatic and tried again, same error. I have since tried everything I can possibly think of (including setting it back and forth between manual & auto while trying the below solutions) to get the service to start, to no avail. Solutions tried so far:

- net start vss in elevated cmd - returns the same error (error 5 access is denied)
- vssvc.exe in elevated cmd - same
- changed permissions to full control for myself, admin group and NETWORK SERVICE (which I had to add) for System32 folder and for vssvc.exe but no change
- changed permissions to full control for myself, admin group and NETWORK SERVICE (which I again had to add) for VSS in regedit (opened as admin) still nothing
- even tried restarting explorer.exe from an elevated cmd and an elevated task manager and did the permissions again - still nothing.

The only thing I haven't done yet is run an sfc scan, but tbh I doubt that'll fix anything. It also seems that VSS has been off for a while, as my last restore point was approx 3 months ago and I've installed things since.

Any suggestions/ideas would be very much appreciated, as I'm going nuts with this now! Thank you!

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