Windows 7 a few problems after system restore.

[KillerDreaming]

I did a system restore a while back after I installed an incorrect sound driver that kinda left my speakers void.. after doing the restore I noticed that a few of my features on 7 didn't work any more.. Not to say that the restore is what caused the problem.. It just happened around the same time..

I dunno if there's any "one problem per thread" rule or whatever, but I'm going to hope and assume there's not..

First: Documents, Pictures and Music from the start menu do not work.. I click them and the start menu does not disappear as if it recognized my click or anything.. nothing happens.. it's like I'm not even clicking it..

I right click the 3 folders and the only options are "Open" and "Send to", neither of which do anything upon being clicked.

I can navigate to all of the folders manually through users, <me>, documents, etc etc.. But the inability to use the shortcuts on my start menu is really annoying.

Second: My "Devices and Printers" doesn't work.. I click it, it pulls up the window, but the window doesn't load.. It shows the sidebar and toolbar but the address/loading bar just loads infinitely.. Never ends..and nothing ever shows up.. this happened around the time I was attempting to install the sound driver (IF I REMEMBER CORRECTLY) but I'm not sure if it had anything to do with it..

Third: This one probably isn't a Windows 7 issue but it's still something that irks me.. I've always used Outlook.. recently I did something (I think I was installing a newer version of the Microsoft Suite thing) and my Outlook stopped working.. Whenever I pull Outlook up it says "Cannot open your default e-mail folders. File access is denied. You do not have the permissions required to access the file C:\Users\KillerDreaming\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook\Outlook.pst."

I'm on the admin account so I don't understand why it does that..

 

[MikeHawthorne]

First:
Right click on a file and look at properties and see what it is set to do.
Pictures should be set to open with Windows Picture Viewer, or Photoshop what ever you want, try changing it and see what happens.
Music should be set to open with Windows Media Player, etc.

Second:
I don't have a clue. But you could try updating your printer drivers, it sounds like it can't find something.

Third:
Have you tried opening Outlook by right clicking on the icon and selecting run as administrator?
Just being on the Admin. Account doesn't get you much in Windows 7.

You have to activate the real administrator account through the Command Prompt.

You could also download an app named Take Ownership and try that.
Add "Take Ownership" to Explorer Right-Click Menu in Win 7 or Vista - How-To Geek

Mike

 

[KillerDreaming]

First:
With these I meant the actual folders. Documents, Pictures and Music meaning the shortcuts to the actual FOLDERS named Documents, Pictures and Music.. The ones located in Users/Username.. The shortcut that's in start menu to those folders is what is giving me problems..

Third: There's no button to "run as admin". Tried it already.

 

[MikeHawthorne]

When you right click on for example "Pictures" do you get a drop down menu?
If so what does it show in Properties?

On the Outlook issue.

Have you tried logging in as administrator by enabling the Administrator Account through the command prompt and then starting Outlook to see if that helps?

Maybe if you get it to recognize you once it will continue to do so.


How to Enable the Administrator Account

Open the command prompt with elevated privileges by clicking the Start orb, All Programs, Accessories, right-click Command Prompt and then select Run as administrator.

Type

net user administrator /active:yes

and then press Enter.

When you are done undue the process by doing the same thing and pasting in ….

net user administrator /active:no

 

[KillerDreaming]

CMD Command: It said "System error 5 has occurred.

Access is denied."

Folders: When I right click them in the start menu it simply says "Open", which does nothing, and "Send to", which has Desktop and Mail Recipient inside it.

 

[MikeHawthorne]

Hi

I really don't know what is going on here.

The System Error 5 message indicates that you are not logged in as an administrator and don't have rights to enter commands, that probably has something to do with the other problems as well.

All I can suggest is that you look in User Accounts and see if anything there looks like it is out of order. Make sure that the Standard User button isn't checked for the account that you are logging into and that it is set to Administrator.

I would also try and disable the UAC by dragging the slider to the bottom and see what happens.

The security in Windows 7 can be a real pain.

Mike

 

[KillerDreaming]

This seems to be getting worse and worse.
Now Chrome can't load the profile due to permissions..
Adobe Reader can't update due to permissions with %APPDATA%..

I can't seem to do anything anymore if it requires a permission.

I created a new admin account and logged onto it.. None of the permission problems seem to be happening on it.. I'm not sure what I need to do to fix this. on my current account I can't do almost anything anymore.

 

[MikeHawthorne]

Try going back and set the permissions for the original account from the new one.

Did you try and turn off the UAC?

I finally gave up and turned it off on my computer.
I've had a lot less hassles since I did so.

Mike

 

[KillerDreaming]

Yeah.. I've tried every thing I could with UAC.. Nothing seemed to work..

 

[MikeHawthorne]

How about just using the new account and removing the original one?

When I used to do a reinstall of Windows I would always make a new account and turn off all the services and startup items.

Then I would reboot and start the process from within the new user ID.

This gave me a clean installation without having to do a clean install that would delete data.

When I was sure the new set up was working perfectly I would just delete the original ID.

I have never had to do this in Windows 7 so far.

 

[KillerDreaming]

Yeah that's what I've done so far. I just am bummed I'll be losing all my profiles for, say, Google Chrome.. The such.. Is there any way to transfer all of my setup info from it to this new account?

 

[MikeHawthorne]

Hi again.

Well since Chrome doesn't have a export function here is how I did my favorites.

I opened Chrome and used snap to show it on the right side of my screen.
Then I open Microsoft Word and snapped it to the left side.

Then I opened each page one at a time from my favorites.

I then highlighted and dragged the web address from the Chrome bar to the Word document one at a time.

Then I opened Chrome on my new computer and dragged the addresses back to the Chrome bar one at a time from the word document.

Once the page opened I dragged it down to the Favorites bar and created the new link.

It was the easiest way to do it that I could find.

Your e-mail client etc, should have a way to export and import your address books message storage folders etc. You can export them in one ID and import them in the other.

Once you have everything up and working you can hopefully delete the old ID and be back to normal.

Mike