VISTA & USB Flash Drive issue.

Had problem with VISTA. :cry Installed new network card & VISTA then wanted me to ACTIVATE [again] my account. I had activated it two times before. Once on purchase then once when MS tech support told me to reinstall to fix 3 bugs.
NOW I have got it activated. :yum BUT, it has stopped allowing me to save files to my Flash USB Thumb drives. It tells me on ALL 10 of my 2 gig drives that they are WRITE-PROTECTED. I have NEVER set them to write-protect. Never encrypted any files. It will not even allow me to reformat a USB flash drive. MS can't come up with an answer [wow, why does THAT not surprise me.] so far. Has anyone ever had this problem? The USB drives were working fine till I installed the new network card. Then the ACTIVATION issue started and the USB write-protect issue joined it.
MS and I fixed one but not the other. PLEASE, anyone help????? rolleyes
Thanks for any help.

 

i don't know if this will work for you, but i found this at another forum:

 

:wave Hey thanks for your input. I finally got help from MS on this. Requires going into regedit. Click on HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, then SYSTEM and go into ControlSet001. Next select Control. Go to sub folder StorageDevicePolicy. There select Writeprotect. Change the Hex value from 1 to 0. POOF, your USB thumb drives now can be accessed and you can save files to them. MS tech support actually found the answer. I was amazed. Last time this issue happened the best they could come up with was to reinstall VISTA. Sheville Rodrigues with Microsoft Tech Support was the one who helped me with both issues I had. Good job, Sheville. Caller ID said he was calling from Ohio. :-D Merry Christmas and to all a good night. :zzz