Win Explorer can't find any system functions

[Whisperss]

Here recently I noticed that when I went into the Start Menu and tried to click on anything at all, I get this popup from the command line saying that "The system cannot find the drive specified." on the top of the command line window and the command line shows "C:\Windows\system32". I can't change anything from the desktop like power profiles (it's a laptop), screen resolution, etc. They all give the same error with the same popup. I do use Classic Shell but have never had a problem with it.

The only other thing I can think of that might be the problem is I took Windows Explorer out of the Task Bar and replaced it with a program called Q-Dir. However, I cannot fathom how this might cause a problem because I did not uninstall Explorer, I only took it out of the Task Bar. Besides, I cannot access anything through Q-Dir either. Unless it's a security program...but even those are well known and I've never had a problem with them. Iolo's System Mechanic maybe? I don't know, I'm shooting in the dark here. Any help would be appreciated, thank you.

 

[Ztruker]

How does it work if you boot to Safe Mode? If you can get there see if you can do a System Restore to a date before this started happening.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/700-system-restore.html

 

[Whisperss]

Haven't tried that yet. I will, but in all honesty, I'm not sure exactly when that was and I also install software fairly regularly as I frequent a couple of sites that gives away shareware. While it isn't always something I need/want, it happens often enough and the catch is that if I lose the software due to bugs/viruses, etc, I can't get them back without paying for it or waiting and praying the same software is given away again AND I happen to catch it at the same time. I'll try Safe Mode and see what that does for me. Thanks for the suggestion.

One quick additional piece of information for you all that may or may not be relevant. In my system tray there is on that says "Intel RST service is not running." I hope that helps.

I tried the Safe Mode and no joy, the problem still persists even then. I also forgot to mention that attempts to do Windows Updates results in the same error message. Any other thoughts?

 

[Ztruker]

You could try doing a System Restore from a booted Windows 7 installation or Repair disc.

Also see if anything here helps: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/681-startup-repair.html

 

[Whisperss]

Further digging revealed that the problem has to do with permissions on my user account which was an Administrator account because I absolutely HATE the UAC with a passion and security be da@ned! It seems that access to system functions in my profile think I'm a standard user for an unknown reason. I thought that maybe I could just change permissions after enabling the system admin account and used it to do so. After doing that and logging back in after logging out of my existing account, I could access drives, Control Panel, etc via the use of UAC so I thought well, if it worked one way, it will work the other way and so reversed the process and changed the permissions on my existing account back to Administrator and logged back in...but no joy. How can a profile behave like an administrator for the installation of programs and such but acts like a standard account for access to system functions?! And is my only option to create a new profile altogether, or will the pc gods smile upon this poor soul and allow me to copy this profile onto a new profile without screwing up the permissions on the new one as well? Or, is there some small chance of fixing the permissions issue with my existing account and I don't have to start from scratch?

 

[Ztruker]

One chance I can think of is to run Windows Repair All-Il-One by Shane on Tweaking.com. I would do all the steps, in order.