Can't access desktop new folder or notepad,can't show hidden files,etc

[mazyarm]

Hi,
This morning, my laptop (Dell Inspiron 15, i5, win7 Ult. Sp1, x64, 6GB RAM) started having the following problems:
1) On the desktop, rightclick, New, shows (Empty). No Notepad; no New folder; there's nothing there.
2) Start, recently used programs/items are gone (empty) and it remains empty even after launching some apps.
3) Start, Computer rightclick, Show on Desktop, does not work. Still no computer icon on desktop.
4) Icon/file positions on Desktop were rearranged.
5) The appearance of the taskbar changed to Windows classic.
6) Rightclick taskbar, Properties, taskbar buttons, never combine, does not work. The buttons are still combined.
7) The yellow folder icon(filesystem browser) on the taskbar is gone.
8) C:\users\<username>\AppData is hidden. I keep changing View options to show hidden files and folders to no avail. AppData exists but remains hidden.
9) In folder view options, unchecking "Hide extensions for known filetypes" does not work. File extensions are still hidden.
10) Selected folder sort options are not remembered. I have to do it all over again every time I open a folder.
11) Cannot pin any app shortcut to taskbar. Doesn't work; nothing happens.
12) Some file-to-app associations are gone.

These are the problems I've found so far. There are probably more.
Anti-virus found no malware.
Sfc /scannow found no problems.
I rolled back to a restore point from a couple of days ago. Still didn't solve the above problems.

All applications (Acrobat, Word, Media Player Classic, etc..) seem to work. But something has screwed up the functionality related to appearance, program/folder access, etc.. I can't really narrow it down more than the above description. Last thing I used last night was uTorrent.

Any ideas what could have caused this or how to fix it?
Thank you.

 

[iko22]

Looks like something has control of your Laptop. Do you use any Antivirus product? Does the issue(s) occur on more than one user profiles? Might be worth creating a new user profile, and check if the issues are replicated.

 

[mazyarm]

iko22,
I did as you suggested. I created a new user, then logged off and logged back in as that new user.
Everything looked good. New folder, Notepad, show hidden files, show file extensions, etc.. Everything worked normally.
So I'm guessing the problem is that, under my usual user account, some windows profile or environment file has become corrupted somewhere.

An suggestions as to how to fix this? Is there a repair feature somewhere that I could use? Would I need to use the OS install disk/image? I would rather not do a fresh install.

Thanks.

 

[Megahertz07]

Welcome to the Forum mazyarm

Please edit your profile with all your hardware specs. It will help us to help you.
System Info - See Your System Specs

Open a CMD window as administrator and type:
chkdsk c: /f
It will say your disk is in use and if you want to schedule to next start = Yes
Reboot
Pay attention on the results, specially bad blocks, bad clusters, bad sectors etc.

Back to windows, Open a CMD window as administrator and type:
sfc /scannow

 

[mazyarm]

Ok,
I ran chdsk c: /f and sfc /scannow with no issues.
But the problems I mentioned earlier still persist.
At this point, I don't know what else to try to fix this, short of a fresh install.
I would appreciate any ideas you may have.


Thank you.

 

[Megahertz07]

Do you have a disk image as a backup?
It seems that your profile data is corrupted. It may be the software you downloaded (torrent).
Run your antivirus. Do a full scan.

I don't think you need to reinstall win 7 ss the new user profile created works. You can transfer your data to it and afterwords delete the corrupted profile.

 

[mazyarm]

No, unfortunately I don't have a backup. I can get a hold of an install disk image as an .iso file.
I will do a full antivirus scan when I have time.
Transferring over to a new profile is a great idea, but I'm not sure how to do that. I will have to do some studying to figure it out. Or if you have a procedure for it, I would appreciate it if you could share it.


Thank you.

 

[iko22]

You can just create the new profile (as perhaps you already have) and then delete the old profile. I'd recommend this too, as it is the least fiddly option to implement. You should not need to do a complete re-installation that way.

Before you delete the old profile, make sure that you have given one profile administrative rights. In other words, don't delete an administrators account if it is the only one you have. I have seen people brick up their machines that way.

Deleting a user account does not delete the users files and folders. The files and folders will still remain intact, so you can decide to keep them where they are, or decide to move them across into the new user account.

 

[Megahertz07]

Sorry, iko22, not completely true.
You have two options when deleting an user account: Profile only and Profile and data.

mazyarm:
- create a new account as administrator.
- Log out from current problematic account and log in on the new account.
- Go to c:\user"old" and move all data to the new account.
- Stay with the two accounts for some time just to make sure you haven't forgot anything.
- Delete the old account - Profile and data

PS.: As the old files has been created by the old user, you may need to take ownership of them as the new user. Take Ownership Shortcut

 

[iko22]

Sorry, iko22, not completely true.
You have two options when deleting an user account: Profile only and Profile and data.

I stand corrected! There are Delete Files, Keep Files and Cancel buttons at the relevant stage, before you can proceed. Sorry for the amnesia.