locked document and settings folder in windows 7

Question

I don't know why but I suddenly cannot access the documents and settings folder in windows 7. It has the pad lock icon on it. And whenever I try to change the settings in the properties>Security tab. And allow full control to everyone. It just returned an error:

Can this be associated with virus or malware

And one more thing when I tried to end process for explorer.exe. And started it again. The pad lock icon is gone. And the document and settings folder now looks like a link. How do I solve this?

Answer 1

Normally Documents and Settings does not actually exist on Windows7, though some areas of windows pretends it does for backwards compatibility. It actually redirects to C:\Users. So try that path instead (or perhaps E:\Users in your case).

For more information:

http://www.addictivetips.com/windows-tips/cannot-find-windows-7-document-settings/ http://www.computerperformance.co.uk/windows7/windows7_appdata.htm

Answer 2

Document and Settings folder in Windows 7 is hidden and not accessible by default.

Answer 3

Have you scanned you computer with a recovery disk to see if it finds a virus, malware or rootkit?

example: http://www.free-av.com/en/tools/12/avira_antivir_rescue_system.html

Might be a good start