The error — Your IT Administrator has limited access to some areas of this app — is related to Windows Security or Windows Defender app, where part of the application is not accessible. It can be the App and Browser control or Device Security or any section of the Windows Security app. In this post, we will show how you can get rid of this error, and able to access the restricted part of the applications.

Your IT Administrator has limited access to some areas of this app

Windows allows IT admins to block access to a complete app or part of it through Group Policy Editor. It applies to any application if it can be controlled through Privacy Policy or Registry Settings. Since Windows Security is the default security solution for all Windows 10 users, IT admins will not want you to change anything of it. You may be an admin, but if your computer is managed by someone else, he may have disabled parts of it.

Ask your IT Admin

If your computer is part of a business where the IT team can only change most of the settings, then you will need to connect with them. You may not have complete access to Group Policy and the ability to change anything. If the company chose not to allow access, then that’s something you will have to adjust. Do note that even if the access is blocked, the app is doing its job in the background as configured by the admin.

Fix for Self Managed Computers

If this happened on a self-managed computer where there are one or two admin account, then something may have changed the setting limiting access to some areas of this app. It is similar to the error we received earlier where complete access to Windows Security was blocked. The image below shows how the group policy and sections of Windows Security is mapped to each other

Now that you understand the mapping, its time to change settings of the section that is blocked for you. Open Group Policy Editor by typing gpedit.msc in the Run prompt (Win + R). Then navigate to:

Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Security.

Open the section which is disabled for you or is missing from the app. You will need to open each policy and change the access to not configured or disabled. As an example, Health and Device Performance policy was disabled for me, and when I changed the related policy to Disabled, it enabled access for me.

Here is the complete list in the same order you will see in the policy.

Account protection
App and browser protection
Device performance and health
Device Security
Family Options
Firewall and network protection
Notifications
Systray
Virus and Threat Protection

If you do not have access to Group Policy, and instead can use Registry, then image below details out on what you need to get this resolved.

The set of the related Registry is available under HKLM > Software > Policies > Windows Defender Security.

You will have to change the DWORD value for each of the keys to 0, which means not configured or disabled.

If you notice, the order of setting in Registry and Group Policy are the same. Find the full details on the Registry in the post titled Your IT administrator has disabled Windows Security.

We have seen posts out there that even ask you to upgrade the OS, Restore it, and sometimes Reset it. Those resolutions are not even close to the resolution of the problem. It is a straight forward case where policy has been changed either by an IT admin or anything else for home computers.

At the maximum, if there is another admin account on the computer, it may have disabled the access for you even though you are an admin, It would be a good idea to get in touch with the user or create another admin account, and use that to resolve the problem.

I hope the post was easy to follow, and you were able to resolve the error Your IT Administrator has limited access to some areas of this app.