Windows 7 Permission Woes

Hello everyone, I've been having some serious issues with Windows 7 Ultimate 32 bit and I was hoping that one of you might be able to clear things up for me. Before this all started I was trying to fix some underscan in Crysis. Alas after trying many supposed fixes I was unable to remove said underscan and shut down my computer for the night. When I woke up the next day and logged into my user account I was greeted to a black background, with nothing save for my cursor, and with this message "Windows cannot access the specified device, path, or file. You may not have the appropriate permissions to access the item", the message was referring to Explorer.exe. Ever since then I've tried; Start-up Repair, removing Crysis itslef, CHKDSK/r, SFC/SCANNOW, all of the F8 options including safe mode, fiddling with the registry editor, and enabling the administrator account. Sadly none of these actions have remedied the situation. Right now I'm currently logged in under the administrator account and am unable to access most of my files. However, certain programs such as cmd, regedit and my anti virus software are still available to me. I would also like to mention that I have edited the permissions for Explorer.exe so that the Administrator, System and Trusted Installer have full control yet that has not gotten me anywhere. I have also run a complete scan with Avira and Malwarebytes but they have both come up negative. At this point I could try to replace the explorer.exe file but I'm not sure if that would do anything at all or, god forbid, it actually ends up making things worse. What should I do next everyone? Please not fresh install

PS: If I have overlooked any crucial information then please don't hesitate to let me know. I wouldn't exactly call myself an expert when it comes to these sorts of things. I have also attached a screen shot of the error for visual reference. I would also like to reiterate that whenever I try to open documents, my computer, control panel etc. this shows up and prevents me from going any further.

 

Hi,

I don't have a solution here just trying to gather information.

So you have a taskbar at the bottom of the screen? Have you tried using System Restore (rstrui.exe at the command prompt) to see if any restore points are available?

If you type msconfig at a command prompt does that window open?

If at a command prompt you type tasklist>C:\list.txt can you upload that file here to MG? Or give a list of running services. (I'm wondering if it is a particular service that is causing the problem)

 

One other thought is how are you starting explorer? The reason I am curious is that in your screen shot the .exe is capitalized. On my Win7 I can find no instances where explorer.exe is named that way. Is your explorer file 2552kb or 2553kb in size? in what folder is it?

 

Right now I'm logged in under my Administrator account so explorer.exe is working in a limited capacity. Meaning that I do have a slightly working desktop with the taskbar. In regards to your other question, it seems I am able to access msconfig but when I attempt to generate a list of running services through cmd I receive this error, " Logon failure: unknown user name or bad password". Also, system restore is a no go. :cry

PS: Instead I took screenshots of the running services in taskmanager. I know this is more crude but I hope it will suffice.

 

My explorer.exe file is located in C:\Windows and its size is 2553kb. As for how I start explorer, usually it's just automatic but even when I directly tell the computer to run explorer through task manager on my user account nothing happens. Your guess is as good as mine as to why it is showing up capitalized in the error message. :confused

 

you say you are logged into an Administrator account.

tell me, can you see the following directory:

c:\Users\your username ?

If you can, you can start backing up your files before you try any more attempts at troubleshooting. I saw where you said you cannot access your files, but if you are logged in as an administrator, surely you should have access to those files.

as for permissions you've given the Administrator and other accounts full access, but have you taken ownership? Got back into the security tab and goto the advanced section and then ownership and take ownership and include child objects.

if none of this works, you might want to consider using Ubuntu to boot your computer to a state where you can access your files, get them off onto removable storage.

Then if you can get back to where you are at now, goto a command prompt, and with your Windows CD inserted, type in D:\setup.exe and do an inplace repair of Windows.


That's all I got right now man.

 

Unfortunately no, even as an administrator those files are locked off to me. Whenever I try to open up my computer, or anything else to the right side of my start menu, I'm met with the same message time and time again. Currently the owner of explorer.exe is the administrator but if I try to edit the setting of that option I receive yet another error stating, "Can't open access control editor. Access denied." On the bright side, I do have a copy of Ubuntu Puppy Linux so I'll follow your advice on that as soon as I can.

 

I did look at your services and they seem set just about right. Nothing jumped out at me.
I'll take a look around to see if I can find anything of use. (I've recently, been trying to duplicate a similar error on my Win7 for testing purposes but haven't succeeded in figuring out exactly what is happening)

If you start an instance of cmd running as Administrator can you get the tasklist?
Start>Search box> type in cmd (do not hit enter) when cmd.exe shows up at the top of the list then right-click and run as administrator. Type in tasklist and compare to the file below. I'm mainly curious is something obvious isn't running that is running on mine.

 

No dice. Even when I run it as an administrator I still get the same logon failure. Is there any other way for me to take a gander at the task list and compare it to yours?

 

It is not a big deal, I'm just curious if any of the basic Windows processes aren't running. For instance your error of " Logon failure: unknown user name or bad password" could it possibly be caused by Winlogon not running? I doubt it is that obvious but something has to be keeping Explorer from working. It seems a permissions issue where Windows doesn't want to let you browse files (at least that is what it looked like to me when I was trying to duplicate the problem on my machine--but in my case I couldn't log into my account and could only get into a base system account which was sort of a made-up user).

TaskManager's processes tab is basically the same information. If you check the box for "show processes from all users". (And, if you click "Image name" in the processes window of TaskManager the list won't refresh according to CPU use and will be easier to read.)

 

Well I just glazed over the list of running processes from task manager and it all looks fine to me but frankly I'm not sure I know what should or should not be there. I'll post a screenshot of it so you can take a look at it as well.

 

You have everything I have running so no help there or in services.

I'll think about the problem but I can only read threads on the net to see if I can find a similar situation with a resolution.

 

Hey everyone, just wanted to let you all know how things are coming along on my end. Well I'm happy to say that I have finally regained the ability to take full ownership of any file or folder on my hard drive. After disabling UAC through the cmd I no longer received that pesky control editor error. Sadly, even after taking full ownership of both explorer.exe and my local hard drive I'm still only able to access certain files and programs. It's strange because my user account is actually showing a desktop now and I can even play Torchlight yet my computer, documents, and control panel are still off limits. What gives? :confused

 

Also I'm not sure if this is significant but I thought it was worth a mention. When I was taking ownership of my local hard drive the former owner showed up as, "S-1-5-21-1707938003-3620065225-122919045-1000". Anyone have any ideas of what that would be? I have actually found it in control of a few other folders even after taking full ownership of the drive.

 

Thanks for the detailed reply TimW. :wave

I just have two quick questions to ask. When I clicked on your link for Resetting Registry and File Permissions it says that you should make sure not to run the attached program on a version of windows higher than XP. Just wanted to double check if this program could function properly on Windows 7. Also, I'm not certain if I'll even be able to install SubInACL because my Windows Installer isn't working. I've posted a screen shot of the error message I get every time I try to use it. If nothing can be done, would I be able to just skip that step?

 

Damn, after running C:\MGtools\FixPerm.bat most of my computer is still inaccessible to me. Would running the same program in my Administrator account make any difference or am I out of luck on this one? I've also attached the Win32kDiag log you were asking for, hope it's of use.

 

The program did run with admin privileges of that I'm sure. As for what's inaccessible, it would seem that major components such as my computer, documents, control panel and many others others are all completely locked down. There are only certain things I seem to have access to; a few system files, a couple games, msconfig etc. The only way I've been able to navigate is by, for lack of a better term, using a backdoor of sorts through my recycle bin and from there I'm able to check out the rest of the computer. I'll post the main error message that I can't seem to get a handle of again, even though I've already taken ownership of the file itself. Could there be a hidden Explorer.EXE that a search isn't revealing?

 

I tried it and attempted to take permission of the same explorer.exe file and it was successful in making me the owner but the overall problem remains unchanged. What is going on? Both that and the fix you provided me a couple posts back should have worked! :confused

 

After checking the option for "Replace owner on subcontainers and objects" it allowed me to take full control and ownership of everything on my main drive. However, the problem persists. I'm really starting to lose hope on this guys. Should I just back-up my files through Linux and do a fresh install? I'm beginning to think that's the last option I have left.

 

Hey Needs Help,

How's it setup for permissions at the root of C:? Once you're in the Security tab, click the Advanced button and reply with the details.

Techsent

P.S.

another way to take ownership is by using win 7's takeown command at the cmd prompt.

takeown /f c:\*.* /r

 

I don't mean to revive an already dead thread but I just wanted to let everyone know that my computer is no longer messed up. After my discussion with TimW I made the tough decision to format my hard drive to finally put this thing to rest once and for all, I was able to back up all my files beforehand through Linux so that made the process a little less painful. Anyway, I just wanted to express my gratitude to everyone for their time and advice in this matter. I really wish we could have figured out just what the heck was going on but at the end of the day a working computer is really all that matters. Thanks again everyone!

PS: One last thing, I'm not sure but I think my problem might have originated from a modified Phys-X file that I downloaded for my ATI card. I bring it up because once I ran the application I got malware warnings from both Avira and M-Bam, I had originally thought it was just a false-positive considering where it came from. Can you guys check this out, is it a legitimate threat or is it harmless? I'll post the link below.

http://www.overclock.net/ati/591872-how-run-physx-windows-7-ati.html

 

You could go back and hit the thanks button on people who posted info to you. :-D:cool Just a thought.

 

Done and done, forgot that you could do that. :-o

Anyway, is that file I linked to safe to download or should I avoid it? I'd also like to mention that I downloaded and used the 1.04FF mod, which had a disturbing message after it had finished. Something along the lines of "Scanned registry keys, nothing to steal ". What's up with that, was that supposed to be a joke or something? Also why does the interface for the file look like the game "VVVVVVVV"?

 

Still need to know whether or not that file is safe to download. Can someone please give me some confirmation on this?

 

Never mind I just realized that a mod like that wouldn't work on a computer like mine given the fact that I don't have an Nvidia GPU to run it off of. I think there's a high degree of probability that the root cause of my problem came from that exact dilemma. When I installed it the first time PhysX must have been running solely off of my CPU which was probably causing some serious problems.

Having come to this conclusion I actually really regret picking up the HD 5870. I primarily use my computer as a gaming platform so the reality that some games, like Metro 2033, require that you have a GPU that is capable of supporting PhysX is a huge bummer. I know I could always get a cheap Nvidia card dedicated to running PhysX as a secondary adapter but that feels like too much of a hassle. Anyway, I'm not sure what I'll do now but I think it's time to put this thread to rest once again. Goodbye everyone and thanks for all the help! :wave