How To Fix The ‘Shut Down’ Bug Affecting Windows 7 PCs

January 14th, 2020, was supposed to mark the end of official Windows 7 support, but new bugs keep popping up and demand Microsoft’s attention. The latest one prevents users from shutting down or restarting their PCs, with the OS claiming that you don’t “have permission” to do so even if you’re using an admin account.

This is now the second issue Windows 7 users have encountered following what was supposed to be the “final” Windows 7 update, the first being an odd wallpaper display issue that required a patch. The new problem with powering down your PC is fixable, but dealing with it yourself isn’t an ideal solution. Hopefully Microsoft can issue a patch to fix the bug soon—it’s a big enough of an issue that a patch seems warranted, but the company is also trying its best to end support for the aged OS.

Whether a patch comes or not, the solutions have been found by Reddit users who have been looking for a way to deal with the problem themselves.

Method 1: Create a temporary user

The first—and safest—way to circumvent the shutdown bug is to create a new temporary account. This will need to be done each time you want to shut down your PC, but it’s also the only solution that doesn’t require tinkering with advanced settings.

1. Press the start button and in the search bar type “Add or remove other users.”

2. Click “Add user” then follow the instructions to create the new user.

3. Log into the new user account then log back out

4. Log back into your main admin account.

5. Try to shut down or restart as normal.

Method 2: Modify group policy settings.

This should only be attempted if you’re comfortable with this process, as it’s super-easy to mess something up permanently when changing system-level settings. Use caution!

1. Press Windows+R to open the Windows Run command then type gpedit.msc and click “Run.”

2. In the policy editor window that appears, go to Computer Configuration > Windows Settings > Security Settings > Local Policies > Security Options.

3. Find and open the “User Account Control: Run all administrators in Admin Approval Mode” from the right panel.

4. Click “Enable.”

5. Press Windows+R, type gpupdate /force and press Enter to run.

6. You should now be able to shut down and restart your PC as normal, but if anything goes amiss, go back through these steps and undo the changes.