Virus or malfunction?

[JeffL]

OK, I know this can only be a guess, but just looking for "what do you think" feedback.

I had what I THOUGHT was a problem, just a quirky behavior related to my browser. Turns out it had nothing to do with my system, I had an extension running that was having a problem (only found out when the extension updated and the update mentioned the problem I was having.)

HOWEVER - before I figured that out, I did a system restore to a point yesterday where a "critical update" had been applied and thus created an restore point.

After doing its thing, and then rebooting, I got an error message that the restore had been unable to restore due to some kind of system error. Eh, OK, try it again. But now system restore won't function at all.

AND - my speaker isn't working. Red X. When I click on it I get an error that the troubleshooting wizard isn't working.

I also notice Carbonite can't connect.

Lastly, and most concerning, when I click on my Windows Explorer icon, I get an error saying "Windows cannot access the specified device, path, or file. You may not have the appropriate permissions to access the item."

Chrome works fine, internet is working. Word is able to read documents off the drive. Haven't yet found anything else messed up.

Your guess: Virus or some things got borked in the abortive system restore? Which would you do first, a Windows 7 re-install or an extended full virus scan? Both will probably take me over an hour.

Thanks

[charmtrap]

Not sure, but I'd back-up anything important right away before your hard drive dies. Whenever my computer starts not being able to "find" stuff there's an impending HD crash.

[Mr_PeaCH]

My guess is it is not a virus. Would reinstall if I were you.

[JeffL]

Cuuuuraaaaaappppp!

OK - so I put in my Windows 7 DVD. Boot from it.

I cannot system recover. It goes through, says "finished" then says restore not done because the recovery points are corrupted or something like that. Does that no matter how far back I go. The only other repair option I see that makes sense is one that goes back to a stored image, which I don't have. I can boot just fine.

So I choose the "Install" option. I have a choice of upgrade or custom. Custom appears to be a new install and says it will wipe out my programs, files etc. OK - 750 gig of purchased programs, files, etc. - do not want to do that.

Custom basically says upgrade. Keeps your current files, etc. But when I choose that it says, hey, you booted from this disc, you need to reboot and boot from your existing system, then put the disc in and upgrade. Well - can't do that, because when I boot from my regular system boot I can't access my DVD drive. Again - I can't access Windows Explorer, or My Computer, etc. But obviously internet works fine and most programs seem to work fine.

I thought I could just reinstall and not wipe out everything on my computer?

[JeffL]

I can't run setup on the Windows 7 DVD because I can't access it. And what I read is I can't do a repair install from Safe mode.

ARGHHHHHHH!!!! Help!!!!

[Morberis]

You can reinstall, everything currently on the disk will be moved to a windows old folder, all 750gb of programs and files. Though you might want to properly reinstall the programs instead of just copying them out and pasting them back into place.

Is your install dvd a windows 7 upgrade dvd or just a windows 7 dvd?

[JeffL]

You can reinstall, everything currently on the disk will be moved to a windows old folder, all 750gb of programs and files. Though you might want to properly reinstall the programs instead of just copying them out and pasting them back into place.

Is your install dvd a windows 7 upgrade dvd or just a windows 7 dvd?

Will it move them to a USB drive? Don't have that much room (at all!) on the main drive.

FWIW - also does the same thing from safe mode. So can't even back up the drive. Ugh.

[JeffL]

Ah - It appears that, while I cannot run Windows Explorer, I can run an alternative such as xplorer2.

That may open some options if I can access my files.

[Zak Gordon]

Not sure, but I'd back-up anything important right away before your hard drive dies. Whenever my computer starts not being able to 'find' stuff there's an impending HD crash.

+1

IF you got a hard-drive about to give up the ghost, you need to make a copy of all your data before you try other stuff imho. Reinstalling windows on a last-gasps HD will not fix the issue IF it is a HD issue. Once all your data is safe, you can afford to run all the virus scans/hd fix scans etc that you want.

[JeffL]

Seems to just be a privileges thing. Most things related to Windows services of any kind are messed up with that "Windows cannot access the specified device, path, or file. You may not have the appropriate permissions to access the item." error. But if I can get to them some other way they are fine.

For example: cant run Windows Explorer (get that error.) I can run a 3rd party Windows Explorer program no problem. I tried to view a photo in my Family Photos folder and got that error - panic time (except I do have those backed up, mostly.) Then I looked harder - my default pic viewer was Windows picture viewer. I used Faststone photo viewer, I can see the file just fine.

Ah crap - just realized I have NO idea where my Photoshop install disc is! Argh! Wonder how many of those I'll be searching for (we just moved a few months ago.)

[Armando Penblade]

if you know your license, you could always download it (I actually think even directly from Adobe) and activate with the legal key.

Beyond that, privileges just borking themselves one day out of the blue is still deeply weird. I've seen it crop up a lot on Windows reinstallations on top of one another where your new admin account can't "get" the last admin account's stuff. . . but that's a pretty weird little edge case.

[JeffL]

Wow. I found the solution. After - and I watched to see how many hours I had to put into this - 9 hours of searching and trying EVERYTHING. I was just backing up my last files when I tried this. I actually found this while reading a long chain of comments on a page that contained a fix that did not work for me.

The solution is not at all obvious, but to put it here for anyone else who ever has this problem:

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/5218-63-cant-explorer

Scroll down until you get to the part that contains this: I'll see if I can cut and paste though it will lose the illustrative graphics, in case this web page ever goes away:


Explorer.EXE-Windows cannot access the specified device, path, or file. You may not have the appropriate permissions to access the item on opening any FOLDER on Windows 7

After working on it for 3 hours, and trying many usual ways
(scanning for viruses, sfc /scannow gave "Windows Resource Protection could not start the repair service", secedit did not do anything (as usual), Subinacl refused to install and gave error “The Windows Installer Service Could Not Be Accessed”); found the problem is due to a permissions issue with C:\Windows\Registration folder

I also scoured the internet and failed to find a resolution (other than a clean windows reinstall by formatting the hard drive)


Solution:
-Click on Start
-In Search box, type c:\windows\Registration
-You will get Registration folder on the top (as a part of search results)
-Right click on Registration and click on Properties
-Go to Security tab and click on Advanced on bottom
-Verify the the Current owner (under Owner tab) is set to Administrators
-Go back to Permissions tab and verify the following permission entries:

Allow Administrators Special <not inherited> This folder and files (full control)
Allow Everyone Special <not inherited> This folder and files
Allow SYSTEM Special <not inherited> This folder and files (full control)

-Edit Administrators & SYSTEM and ensure it Applies to This folder and files; and all boxes under Allow are checked

-Edit Everyone and ensure it Applies to This folder and files; and boxes to ticked are Traverse folder/execute file, List folder/read data, Read attributes, Read extended attributes and Read permissions


-If any of the three is missing (Everyone & Administrators most likely), just click on Add and type the name of the one missing, Check Names and OK it and then set the permissions as stated above


-Finally, put a check under Replace all child objects permissions with inheritable permissions from this object and click on OK on all the following prompts and restart the computer. Everything would be back to normal

I actually didn't even have to restart my computer. I could NOT believe it when this worked. I had tried various permissions tips, but only this one on the C:\Windows\Registration folder worked. And I couldn't follow his instructions to the letter, as I could not access the "Properties" on this folder that came up in the Start menu search, but I could when I used xplorer2 (a Windows Explorer alternative I found, since Windows Explorer also stopped working.)

Now my sound is back, everything is accessible, etc. I was 10 minutes from a full destructive reinstall of Windows 7. I need to find this guy and reward him somehow!

Anyway - hope no one else runs into this because there are hundreds and hundreds of hits on Google for the error, and none of the other fixes worked.

[Armando Penblade]

Quick, everyone link to Jeff's post from their blogs!

But seriously, huge congrats on fixing that one. That sounds horrifying.

[JeffL]

Yeah, got lucky I actually read through all the comments on the one pages. Also lucky I didn't screw up the system trying some of the reg hacks, etc. people were talking about.

Just do a Google search on "Windows cannot access the specified device, path, or file. You may not have the appropriate permissions to access the item." and you'll see the huge number of hits. And this fix was only cited once in all of the hits I read (at least 50 or more) and it was in the comments.

I had actually tried looking at the permissions on, e.g., the Windows Explorer folder and it looked fine. For some reason, the permissions on the C:Windows\Registration folder were blank. Even after I fixed that, it didn't work and I almost assumed it wasn't the fix. But I kept reading, realized I hadn't added the "Everything" entry, and also had not checked the "replace all child objects..... " box. It was truly a "I Can't Believe This Worked" moment.

Now to do some backups (I do use Carbonite but need to check what I am backing up and update) and set up some emergency folders for reg codes, etc. as well as track down the install discs for programs I absolutely don't want to have to re-purchase (Photoshop, Office, etc.)

Whew.

[Zak Gordon]

What the? So was this due to the issue around the abortive system restore, or that update? And if whatever it was that changed this, what else could it have changed? Sounds real messy, but atleast your hard-drive is probably ok. Obscure issues like this can drive you nuts, so well done on maintaining your sanity and finding a fix, and i've bookmarked that tomshardware link :)

[JeffL]

What the? So was this due to the issue around the abortive system restore, or that update? And if whatever it was that changed this, what else could it have changed? Sounds real messy, but atleast your hard-drive is probably ok. Obscure issues like this can drive you nuts, so well done on maintaining your sanity and finding a fix, and i've bookmarked that tomshardware link :)

Zak, it appears the aborted restore caused it. Everything was fine, I did a system restore (I thought I had an issue with a Chrome app but turned out I didn't) and the system restore aborted on me, and from that point forward the issue was I place. I don't know if the system restore started something with the registry permissions and then left it incomplete or what but no doubt that is the event that caused the problem.

[Zak Gordon]

So you going to just carry on and see if everything is fine? Atleast you made backups now, but i'd just be prepared for a fresh re-install at some point. Do your system restores now work (you may not want to check this out right now if things appear to be working!), but whatever....fingers crossed etc!

[JeffL]

So you going to just carry on and see if everything is fine? Atleast you made backups now, but i'd just be prepared for a fresh re-install at some point. Do your system restores now work (you may not want to check this out right now if things appear to be working!), but whatever....fingers crossed etc!

Yeah, backed up everything, which I needed to do anyway, so if I had a crash now, it would just be a pain in the rump.

But I have done a couple of pretty deep scans/tests of the HD, and it comes out as healthy. Two separate deep virus checks have come out clean. I've tested everything I can think of and it all looks good at this point. And the C:\Windows\Registration properties showed, before I took the steps above, that it was indeed borked - the permissions were just completely blanked out, the Everyone field was missing, and the child box was unchecked. It is almost as if the Restore process started by clearing that to allow it to make all the changes and then, when it got screwed up, never had a chance to "close" it.

So I'm not sure what else I can do at this point. I am tempted to do a Windows 7 re-install, if I can remember how to do that without deleting programs, files, etc. just for general purposes.

[Zak Gordon]

After the recent 'stress' i'd be tempted to let it run and see if it behaves, atleast as long as it is not on a 'work' PC. It could be fine.