Permission&Access&User Acount Woes

Permission is just my newest trouble! My computer crashed some weeks ago, & I never received a solution; I have Windows 7 Home Premium on, 32 bit, on a Toshiba Satellite laptop. It replaces one that was stolen from me; no frills is fine, but I have had many troubles!

I am in exams online in grad school, so did not do my Performance Monitor/Error checking or anything, just working on schoolwork. But as I worked with reports, etc., I realized that all files in "My Documents" were also in (at least!) two other places: Public Documents and Pictures --

I went right to trying to move them, they were marked "Read Only", and I wasn't able to gain permission to ,make changes or move my files out of Public Documents, where they were "shared" & I was blocked from hitting "stop sharing" -- "didn't have the authority". When I realized they were also in Pictures, and set up as "Share" items, I was sickened; my very private documents on my computer system, & I didn't have the right to move my own files!

I am the Administrator, and I am the Owner; I live alone and nobody has used my laptop. *When I wrestled to restore my Permissions, I might make the changes, and "SYSTEM" seemed to be "in charge" -- my Full Control permissions were faded out, & when I would restore them, I could not click "Apply". Now unable to change permissions, or properties, I went to search for answers & was told to change the security settings at the root; I "enabled all authorized users to enable their permissions" -- that first time, it seemed to work & I was able to "un-share" my files; checked back to the root (C:drive), & it was back like before; my permissions faded & me blocked from clicking "apply" when I attempted to do what I did to get good results before.

I decided to do a "System Restore"; it did not make any difference. But there was an extra file (outside of the C drive System file called "System" when the Restore began. Bogus file called System?? Is that possible? Also, my Protection had been turned off; I had to re-set it and that has never happened.

I thought it could be a virus; ran the Microsoft program to detect Malware (am running Security Essentials); yet, I was told "no". It used to be so simple; my document files stayed in ONE location; & now I realize I have files in multiple locations and I neither did that nor authorized anyone to do that. *And I don't know how to move them with Internet Explorer; of course they are really located at "My Documents", so I am stopped from moving them out of the wrong place: "location is the same." It has been one really troubling matter after another & I hope there is some help for me.

I use a password, work from an Administrator Account; have changed passwords recently, & probably would have "let it go" tonight except that I was being exposed, and even now that (I think!) the share capacity was stopped (also went into Network Sharing & cut off "Network Discovery", I just feel so out of control with my own System & so vulnerably at risk: I have no idea how long my grad school and private documents weren't private!!

Using a home pc has never been this complicated or out-of-control, and as willing as I am to restore & repair, it really does upset my world in big ways.
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So, I would welcome any advice, would love to find a Solution, and would be very grateful if somebody could help me.

Thank you.

You might try opening Libraries via the left pane in Windows Explorer and if "Documents" is *not* listed as a library - right-click on Libraries and choose Restore Default Libraries to see if this will fix it?

I appreciate your quick reply so much! I checked Libraries as you said, & Documents is there. Somehow it seems I finally got my "My Documents" files out of Pictures, just don't know exactly how.

I re-checked after my post, and, again, I am running into opening files that say they are Read-Only; can't change it because I am blocked as Authorized User, even though I am the ONLY user!

Does anyone KNOW how to restore permissions? or if User Account Settings can be changed? I thank you for any help; sorry to be so "needy" about this; it took me a while to get here.

And, again, Oaken, thank you so much!

Go to the libraries in question and right click on it in the left pane, then click "properties". It sounds like your "Documents" library has multiple entries, including public and My Pictures? You can remove the ones you don't need. Or maybe I am misunderstanding. Hope that helps.

Yes, I appreciate this so much. And I will try that. My biggest concern, however, is the Permissions problem. Someone told me my best bet is to uninstall and reinstall. That would be more than a "reach" for me at Finals Time. . . Any suggestions besides that? I am open for them.

Thank you again for your reply!