Windows 7 Screwed Up... Help Please...

[Fun Guy]

I have two issues that persist that are constantly getting into my way, and would like some input from the the Windows gurus on here, please.

First issue - Got one of those viruses a year or so ago that hijacks all of your desktop icons and essentially makes your computer feel like its been taken over. I searched for the fix and implemented it, the problem is before that I was cleaning up the computer and accidentally deleted a temp folder which contained all the icons. I've managed to get enough back so I can work, but there are still issues, like my Start -> Administrative Tools and Start -> Accessories folders are empty. I suppose I could rebuild them one-by-one, but I really don't want to.

Second issue - Somewhere along the line I was changing permissions and the process got hung up. As a result, the Security and Permissions are all screwed up on ALL of my folders. In trying to fix it, I am constantly presented with "You don't currently have permission to access this folder" despite the fact that I have full administrator privileges. Every once in a while I get "Click Continue to permanently get access to this folder," but it is very frustrating.

I have a repair disc, but it is from a long time ago, and I have installed a lot of programs since then.

I am thinking about just re-installing Win7 SP1 over the current installation. I did this before with XP and it worked fine. Would that work here in this instance?

 

[imagoon]

Title should be: I screwed up Windows 7... Help Please...

You should have wiped and reinstalled when you picked up the virus. It often next to impossible to resolve issues caused by viruses.

The second issue is normally caused by ownership issues but can be other things. You need to take ownership of the files and then grant the proper access. Also even when logged in with admin rights, you are not using admin tokens so you will keep getting odd issues like what you are describing when the permissions are still not correct of your account.

 

[JackMDS]

Being and Admin. does Not give you auto permission to Access every Folder, it just gives you the capacity to Access the Permission and Security Settings and then set the specific folder permission/security.

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General Info about Permission & Security Win 7

Using the Everyone feature saves the need of configuring permission to each of the established users, it does not mean Everyone that feel that they would like to login.

Users that do not have an account on the computer are Not part of the Everyone Group.

If security on the LAN is Not needed and users are Not established, then switching On the Guest account provides semi-open configuration.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Turn-the-guest-account-on-or-off

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Point to the a Folder that meant to to be share. Right click and choose properties.

In the properties

Click on the Security tab shown in the pic bellow to the right) and check that the users and their permission (shown in the pic bellow center and left) are correctly configured. Then do the same to the Permission tab.

This screen shot is from Win 7, Vista's menus are similar.

http://www.ezlan.net/Win7/Permission-Security.jpg

In both the Security panel, and the Permission panel you have to highlight each

User/Group and examine that the Permission Controls are checked correctly.

When everything is OK, Reboot the Network (Router, and computer).

* Note . The Groups and Users shown in the screen-shoot are just an example. Your list will look the way your system is configured.

 

[postmortemIA]

to fix permissions, you would want to give Everyone read/write access to root of drive, and check option to propagate permissions to all children... and this time don't interrupt the process

 

[imagoon]

to fix permissions, you would want to give Everyone read/write access to root of drive, and check option to propagate permissions to all children... and this time don't interrupt the process

Don't do that to a system disk or you may never boot again.