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Windows 7 running as an elevated user after crash
Okay this may sound weird. My PC crashed (at least that's the story I was told. I was away and my 7 year old brother was using it) while playing a game.
Since then, Windows 7 (Ultimate x64 updated to the lastest till June 16) started behaving weirdly. At first I wasn't able to figure out the problem. It had lost all user configurations and acted like I booted it up for the first time, though all the programs were still there but had lost all their user configuration.
After spending over 10 hours trying to figure out what's wrong, I've noticed that everything I run, starts up in an elevated user mode. On top of that, I can't run Explorer (explorer.exe displays an error saying "The server process could not be started because the configured identity is incorrect. Check the username and password.") or anything related to it like Control Panel etc. Even programs that reside in the Appliication Data/Local Settings don't work anymore (Google Chrome or Firefox for example).
Aero isn't working at all even though I can see the AMD Catalyst Control Center running in the system tray.
The user profile (and libraries) are now set to C:\Windows\System32\SystemProfile even though my actual profile is still intact in C:\Users.
This problem is a really weird one and I can't figure out what to do. All the recent restore points are gone. I only see the one created after this problem started. I know there were other restore points as well because one was created right before the recent patch Tuesday, and I can also see them in the System Volume Information folder. The most recent Windows Backup Image also shows up from February 2011.
I even tried to repair Windows by reinstalling but that also failed. Setup says to remove a couple of apps before I can upgrade Windows and those apps don't exist on the sysetm (I'm using CCleaner to Add/Remove programs since no control panel app is working).
My only choice left is a fresh, clean install of Windows which I want to avoid at all costs. This current install has been running flawlessly since July/August 2009 (Yeah I'm still using my MSDN build) and I don't want to loose years worth of stuff (configuration, apps, profiles and settings etc) by reinstalling.
I'm hoping the gurus here would have any ideas on what's going on and someone can help me fix this thing.
My System information:
- Windows 7 Ultimate x64 (with all the latest updates (including optional ones) up till June 16, 2011)
- AMD Phenom II X3 720 BE
- MSI 790GX-GD65
- AMD Radeon HD 5770
- Corsair XMS3 4GB
- WD Caviar Green 640 GB
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