Hi,
I've seen this sort of thing before, and in just about all versions of windows, not just Win7. As to why, computers are quirky complex machines so stuff breaks when things are shutdown in an ungraceful manner. An analogy that might help you to comprehend it is this. Imagine driving your car down the freeway at 65mph, and you decide that you are tired of driving, so you just turn off the ignition (by turning key or hitting Stop switch). Don't know if you've ever done this or not, but I have, and it does BAD things to your engine and transmission at the very least. If you don't believe me, try it.
So, yes, it's absolutely possible that the UAC notification setting is not the only Registry setting affected, and there are tens of thousands of other settings also stored with the HIVE; the 5 files that comprise the registry in Windows.
You have a couple of routes to correct this; the easy route and the not-so-easy route.
IN BOTH OF THESE, IT'S VERY IMPORTANT YOU BACK UP ANY AND ALL PERSONAL DATA TO EXTERNAL MEDIA PRIOR TO ATTEMPTING EITHER OF THESE REPAIRS! ANY DATA LOSS YOU SUFFER CAN BE IRREVERSIBLE AND VERY EXPENSIVE TO RECOVER, IF RECOVERY IS POSSIBLE AT ALL!!
EASY ROUTE: Use the built-in Windows utility SYSTEM RESTORE to "rollback" your system to a point in time just PRIOR to the unexpected hard shutdown. For example, if your system crashed Monday, use SYSTEM RESTORE to rollback your system to the Sunday or Friday prior to this crash. If it was this Monday, say 3/30; you'd want to rollback to Sunday 3/29 or Fri. 3/27. This will fix your UAC setting and any other settings that got corrupted in your Registry in most instances.
NOT-SO-EASY ROUTE:
STEP#1: Go to Start-->Run, and enter the "CMD" into the Run box; do not click it when it comes up on the Search list; rather, right-click and choose "Run As Administrator". This will open what we Techs call a "DOS Box" or a "DOS Window"; old lingo I know. In this black and white window, you will get a pop-up windows from UAC asking permission to run the "WINDOWS COMMAND PROCESSOR" which you must answer "YES" to.
STEP#2: In the little black & white box, you will have something similar to C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32>. To the right of the little arrow pointing to the right ">", the greater-than sign, type in the following:
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32>CHKDSK /R
This will start a process of checking your file table indices and scanning your hard drive for any bad sectors. This process runs in 5 stages and depending on the size of your hard drive, can take anywhere from a couple of hours to 18 hours or more. *DO NOT INTERRUPT FOR ANY REASON WHILE RUNNING THIS COMMAND!!**
STEP #3: Frequently, upon successful completion of the CHKDSK command*, it will either restart your computer or ask you permission to do so. Restart your Computer.
STEP #4: Repeat steps, #1 and #2, except when you get to the C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32> prompt again, you will be typing in a different command, this time:
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32>SFC /SCANNOW
Notice the stuff you type in BOLD letters. This is the Windows built-in utility called System File Checker. This utility will go through all the Windows system and core library files and compare them to a Read-Only hidden copy it keeps on your boot drive. In some cases, if your hard drive has failed or begun to fail, the stored copies will not work and this command will check for missing or corrupted Windows files and will attempt to copy/restore and overwrite any corrupted system files. If the SFC command, which should take several hours to complete, but not as long as the CHKDSK command, does not complete, fails, hangs, freezes, then you will have to repeat running SFC from your Windows Install disc using the WindowsRE or Recovery Console command to retrieve good copies of the system file from the CD/DVD Windows disc. This will usually fix things; but, if it doesn't, you should then suspect a faulty hard drive and test it thoroughly and if faulty, replace it and repeat all the steps above.
Should you get to this point, and suspect your hard drive of failing, post back and I will provide you a link with detailed instructions on how to test your hard drive.
STEP #5: If SFC runs to completion, it will restart your Computer or ask you permission to do so. Restart it and things should be hunky-dory again!!
Bear in mind, there are a lot of steps here on this 2nd procedure, so if you can't wrap your head around it, I urge you to take your computer into your local repair shop. Ensure the Tech you hire to repair your computer is A+ licensed and certifed or better. If no, take it somewher where their Techs are certified.
Either of these procedures should fix your UAC settings corrupted by your hard shutdown, along with any others as you suspected could cause problems with other programs you haven't used for a while or any new programs you install or download onto that computer! !
These 2 procedures will fix this problem in the majority of cases, unless your hard drive has failed, which is very common if your computer is over 3 years old. In this case, you will have to replace the hard drive and reinstall Windows from scratch to reuse that computer again.
Post back and let us know how you are doing or if you have any questions.
Have a Great week!
<<<<BIGBEARJEDI>>>>
