Unable to turn off “Restricted Mode is enabled by your network administrator” in YouTube, but I AM the administrator. Help!

Anonymous
2018-04-24T15:11:11+00:00

Unable to turn off “Restricted Mode is enabled by your network administrator” in YouTube, but IAM the administrator. Help!

Hi all,

Here’s the nub of the problem: 

YouTube says: “Restricted Mode is enabled by your network administrator.” but I AM the administrator of my own home pc. I'm totally mystified as to how this got activated in the first place and I can't find a way of undoing it. How do I switch this off?!?

I’m using Windows 7 and Google Chrome on a home computer. Any chance anyone could help me (and the no doubt countless others out there plagued with the same problem) out?

I’ve already trawled YouTube and Chrome forums on this and have drawn a dud at every turn. No help there. The problem is not a Family Safety issue, as I don’t have a family account. So you are quite possibly my last hope of resolving this.

I’ve even tried the regedit route (i.e. switching the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Google\Chrome\ForceSafeSearch register key value to 0), but that, too, was a dead end because no such Google key or policy exists in the Policies folder on my pc.

I’m not a PC expert, so you may need to spell things out in fairly plain English for me.

Big, big thanks in advance for any assistance with this.

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Security and privacy

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments

154 answers

Sort by: Newest
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2018-09-21T08:07:52+00:00

    So this is the real deal.  After trying everything on this thread with no luck I figured it out.  Hopefully I can save someone some time.  Two hours of my life I will never get back.  The issue is not with YouTube or Microsoft.  The issue is with your internet provider.  They are the network administrator who is restricting you.  Don't believe me, disconnect from your WiFi, use personal hotspot to connect then go to YouTube and there you have it.  Problem solved.  Now all you have to do is confront your ISP.

    Was this answer helpful?

    20+ people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2018-08-23T13:03:48+00:00

    So in my case it turns out that it was my filtering software that was doing this. They just launched an update to be able to toggle that on or off. Do you have an internet filtering software that might be causing this?

    Was this answer helpful?

    3 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  3. Anonymous
    2018-08-23T02:20:40+00:00

    I'm having this same problem.

    Was this answer helpful?

    1 person found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  4. Anonymous
    2018-08-14T22:18:51+00:00

    what happens when i delete C:\Program Files\Windows Security\BrowserCore\manifest.json all together and not replace it

    I do not know.  You cannot delete it from Windows, though.  If you boot to the recovery environment and then use a command prompt, then you might as well just rename the file to .old just in case, as opposed to deleting it.

    Was this answer helpful?

    3 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  5. Anonymous
    2018-08-14T21:28:51+00:00

    what happens when i delete C:\Program Files\Windows Security\BrowserCore\manifest.json all together and not replace it

    Was this answer helpful?

    1 person found this answer helpful.
    0 comments