You are not allowed to shutdown and restart this computer

If you get an error message that prevents you from shutting down or restarting your Windows PC or laptop, you need to apply a policy setting or edit the registry to solve this problem. The error occurs no matter how you restart your computer i.e. power button, start menu or even command prompt. The operating system cancels the shutdown command with an error message – You are not allowed to shutdown and restart this computer. This can happen on Windows 11/10/8/7.

You are not allowed to shutdown and restart this computer

To apply the fix, we will need to modify or apply the “Run all administrators on admin approval” group policy, so that it can be turned on for all users. Another way is to make changes to the registry. We will cover the following topics:

1. Group Policy method
2. Registration method
3. What is the purpose of the policy User Account Control: Enable Admin Approval Mode?

Since Windows Home users cannot access Group Policy, follow the Windows Registry method. Also, be sure to create a restore point before you begin.

1]Group Policy method

• Open the Run dialog box by pressing Win + R, type gpedit.msc and hit OK.
• Go to PC Settings > Windows Settings > Security Settings > Local Policies > Security Options
• Search User Account Control: Turn on all administrators in admin approval and set it to To allow
• Open the run prompt and run the command gpupdate / force. This will force all group policies to be updated to reflect the last change you made
• Reboot the system by opening the Run dialog again, type shutdown -r and press OK

If you can not turn off gupdateThen kill explorer.exe and restart it using the Run dialog

2]Recording method to enable LUA

Open Registry Editor

Go to the following location where the corresponding registry key is available.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System

Locate EnableLUAAnd double-click to change the value

Set the value as 1 to set it as enabled. If you use 0, it will be treated as disabled.

What is User Account Control: Administrator Consent Mode Enabling Policy?

This policy setting controls the behavior of all User Account Control (UAC) policy settings for the computer. When enabled, to allow the built-in Administrator account and all other users who are members of the Administrators group to run in Administrator approval mode. Simply put, this should allow admin users to do everything an admin account is allowed to do on the computer.

When disabled or misconfigured, the Windows Security Center notifies you of a general functionality drop. In our case, one of the limitations was turning off or restarting the computer.

From what I’ve seen on the forums, it’s not just a reboot issue that can be fixed with this solution, but a bunch of issues. This includes saving files from third-party applications, restarting the computer, shutting down, etc.

Related reading: Prevent users from shutting down or restarting Windows computers.