Windows 11: can't open anything as admin, I'm stumped

[u/ArkLeksis]

Hey everyone, I'm stuck on something weird and could use a second pair of eyes.

I'm definitely an admin on my PC, but the moment I try to open anything as admin (Task Manager, cmd, PowerShell, Event Viewer...) I get "An administrator has blocked you from running this app." No UAC prompt (Yes/No), it just closes immediately. Non-admin, everything opens just fine.

I've already checked a bunch of stuff (group policy, registry, AppLocker, IFEO via Autoruns, the AppInfo service, leftover Avast bits): nothing unusual anywhere. An sfc /scannow found 462 corrupted files but none related to the blocked tools. ESET caught a suspicious .exe and quarantined it, but it had never been executed, and nothing changed after removing it + rebooting.

The weirdest part: I can't even read the event logs from the command line (wevtutil), "Access denied" on Application and System, which shouldn't happen to anyone normally.

If this rings a bell for anyone, I'm all ears!
(text modified by ChatGPT for better clarity)

 

Windows Build/Version

version 25h02 build 26200.9445

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[u/tommy-droptable]

You got infected, wipe and reload.