Several questions

Thank you all...

5a. What kind of problems should I expect now (after changing the ownership to Adminitrators)? If I'll have real trouble then I better reinstall Windows I guess?

5b. This message (no disc in the drive) was only displayed once when I first installed Windows. Then twice when I changed some settings. And now three times - I think it's a Windows 7 bug of some sort.

5d. How do I change the setting "Group By" in Windows Explorer?

6. I use Firefox (I would like to change the Notepad's behaviour).

7. I remembered one more question: why are some programs in the taskbar almost always coloured red (Winamp for example), it's distracting for no reason. Could this be changed to?

The advice you've received about changing the folder permissions is good. You need to reinstall. Many of the folders you have changed are not folders at all, but junction points that are simply pointers to real folders. Having changed these causes potentially disastrous results.

You *might* be able to do a system restore to a point before you made the changes and not have to reinstall, but regardless of how you do it, those changes need to be undone.

Hello again! Thank you all for helping me, especially you Mike! I still need some help regarding my "points" from previous posts:

5a. I reinstalled Windows 7 as you suggested, I think it was the right thing to do (I already started seeing problems with Windows Explorer). I will never do that again. But I still wonder if there is a SAFE way to be able to take a look in all the folders on a HDD (as it was possible with XP).

5b. The re-appearing missind CD/DVD message is a Classic Shell issue, I notified the C.S. author and he said he will take a look into it. Other than that I must say that I really like C.S., it's a great tool.

5d. This got solved by itself when I reinstalled Windows. :)

6. Thank you for the suggestion, but I don't want a Firefox addon. I would like to change the Notepad's behaviour so that it would do as the XP Notepad did - if that is possible. "Click-marking" works fine in Firefox still, only the Win7 Notepad doesn't want to mark a whole line (it stops at a "-" and "?" marks). Is that changeable?

7. The minimized programs in the task bar become red if I hoover with mouse over them (but not all) and sometimes they become red even if they are in the background. It can get annoying. Can this be disabled? I use the Windows 7 Basic theme.

8. I have another question regarding the my older questions (on how to hide Libraries etc. from the Explorer): is there a tool/program that would safely and properly edit that in the Win7 registry so that I don't have to do it manually?

9. And one more: Is it OK/safe to turn off Win7 UAC settings? I've set it to Never notify because I was bothered with constant popups.

Sorry for a long post, I hope you can help me again. Thank you very much!

5a. I reinstalled Windows 7 as you suggested, I think it was the right thing to do (I already started seeing problems with Windows Explorer). I will never do that again. But I still wonder if there is a SAFE way to be able to take a look in all the folders on a HDD (as it was possible with XP).

Yes there is a way to SEE all the folders on your HDD. But there is no good way to SEE INSIDE some of them.
Some of them are what Mike has stated, Junction points. They are not REAL folders. They are hard shortcuts to other folders for backward compatibility with older programs.

Just add your user name to the security section of the C drive and grant it FULL rights but do not take ownership or change permissions for other users (System/Administrators).
Then in folder options (Control Panel or Tools Folder Option in Win Explorer) check or uncheck the option to show all files & folders, don't hide files & folder and so on.

On all other drives in your system, whether partitions or physical drives, you can do basically anything you want. It just the system drive that you have to watch out for.


5b. The re-appearing missind CD/DVD message is a Classic Shell issue, I notified the C.S. author and he said he will take a look into it. Other than that I must say that I really like C.S., it's a great tool.

I've been using C S since I started using Win 7 (don't know what I would do without it) and have never seen this happen. But then I don't have a Blu-Ray drive.

@ logicearth - I've read the two links you have in your signature and can now understand it a little clearer. Those non-accessible folders I see in the Explorer are some kind of shortcuts, provided for the older programs. I think I'll settle with that and leave them alone.


@ Shootist - Thank you for the explanation. But I've decided to leave those folders alone. I don't want to mess with the OS anymore. About the C.S.: set the auto navigate to folders function to "always" and then try accessing an empty drive.


@ Mike Connor - Thank you for all your help.
5d. I was referring to Group by / Sort by settings in W. Explorer.
6., 7., 8. I will post new separate threads as you suggested.
9. If I turn off UAC, is it then like as if I would still be using Windows XP (security wise)?

I see. Well, I've set it off and will leave it like that. I have an antivirus and a sandboxing program and I don't think I need UAC. It annoys too much. Thank you.