SharePoint Server 2010 + Windows 7 + Secure Store Service = Access is Denied!

Hi all SharePoint gurus,

Posting here as I am at the end of my rope with this! I would like to do PowerPivot for SharePoint development on my Win 7 x64 laptop, which requires a full SharePoint Enterprise installation. I also need Secure Store Service to work since the workbooks I will be using will be using external data sources. Even though this is not "officially" supported, I'd like to follow this person who's done this here: http://blog.datainspirations.com/2010/05/23/installing-powerpivot-for-sharepoint-on-windows-7/

Long story short - it's installed and running and I am up against the dreaded "Cannot complete this action because the Secure Store Shared Service is not responding. Please contact your administrator" whenever I try to Generate a New Key for a new Secure Store Service Application. The ULS logs tell me that "Access is denied".

I've tried the following: restarting services, restarting the box, reinstalling Sharepoint 2010 Enterprise, et. My account is both a domain account and an admin on the box and my account runs all the SharePoint application pools, is a sysadmin on the SQL Server 2008 R2 local instance AND is the dbo for all SharePoint databases. When creating a new SSS Service Application, I also add myself to the Administrators and Permissions area (Full Control and all that). Finally, I am in the Farm Admin group. This has been vexing me forever. :(

The errors in ULS are always the same. It goes in this order:

1. Access Denied: ClaimsManager.GetClaimsFromContext failed
2. GetApplications failed with the following exception: Microsoft.Office.SecureStoreService.Server.SecureStoreServiceException: Access is denied.
3. The Secure Store Service application Secure Store Service is not accessible. The full exception text is: Access is denied.
4. Unexpected exception from endpoint address : https://jccstudioxps:32844/9ae6944ac6f84b6ba350b83375d9e852/SecureStoreService.svc/https
5. Logging unknown/unexpected client side exception: FaultException`1. This will cause this application server to be removed from the load balancer queue.
6. Error occured while managing Secure Store Application 35bfa01f-81fd-4287-8a17-6e326d0cc915. Error message: Access is denied.

Anyways, if anyone has come across this before, please let me know. Even if you haven't, can you answer the following:

1. I can't tell if my calls are actually making it to the Secure Store database then then being denied with a "login failed for user <blank>". Are there any SQL Error logs or something that would show this? Nothing shows up at the database level in Event Viewer or ULS so that tells me either 1) its not getting that far before Access Denied or 2) it is but I can find the right log.

2. So it seems like this is web services related and that my account (or the account Sharepoint is trying to use) can't run GetApplications from the SSS web service at the url above. Has anyone just diagnosed Access Denied at the Service Application url level before?

Thanks everyone! It would be great to get past this once and for all.

Sincerely,

J'son
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