Q:

Unable to get Wordpress up and running

I am trying to get Wordpress up and running and have run into a problem with the login mechanism. When I ran the Wordpress setup for the first time it successfully created the database and filled the wp_capabilities table, but it failed to create the user. I did some research and found how the user data is stored, and created the entries manually. It is letting me log in but then gives me the following error:
You do not have sufficient permissions to access this page. 
I added the following keys in wp_usermeta:
wp_capabilities = a:1:{s:13:"administrator";b:1;}
wp_user_level = 10

Any idea what is wrong? If it makes any difference I am running this on Windows IIS7 (with PHP support).

A:

I would suggest you start again from scratch and ensure that the database user you configure in wp-config.php has the correct write permissions for the database. Also I would suggest changing the permissions of the wordpress directory to read, write, execute for all users while you are setting it up then change group and other permissions to read and execute only, after set up.
For windows you will want something like:
CACLS <your_wordpress_directory> /E /T /C "<user>":F

to grant full permissions. Then:
CACLS <your_wordpress_directory> /E /T /C /W "<user>"

to revoke write permissions.
EDITS:
If you are seeing SMTP failure issues have a look here to see if disabling authentication as a requirement helps.

