can anybody help???

[gandalfthegrey]

Hi guys....

A friend of mine asked me to look at his PC,he keeps getting the error

" windows cannot access the specified device,path or file.You may not have the appropriate permissions to access the item"

This happens with every exe he tries to open...even trying to access Cd's (for repair files) can anybody help..I've tried googleing the problem but all the answers are too vague.
Running windows XP home edition...
Cheers
gandalf

 

[Topper]

If he is not logged in as administrator then that will be the problem. Check his login to ensure he has full access goto control panel user accounts and see if his account is set up as computer administrator

 

[drag0nfly_69uk]

it's either virus or spyware, it's preventing explorer to look into any drive. it could mean that he'll have to re-install windows. i had a similiar problem, that everytime i rightclick on a folder, a pop-up appear to say that "the windows licence is invalid, you'll have to contact so & so website to re-register your copy of windows". everyone will fall for it, only noticable if you look carefully at webaddress, it doesnot belong to bill gates

 

[Mickha]

Hi gandalfthegrey,
what anti-virus and spyware software is he currently using, and is the computer upto date with Microsofts updates? If you try Panda you can run a free test of your computer to fix a lot of virus and spyware:
_http://www.pandasoftware.com/emailhtml/EM-AS502PAN-UK/default.htm
If this fails to clear the problem try spybot search & destroy, and Hijack this and other spyware software.
_http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html

_http://www.majorgeeks.com/download3155.html

If none of these clears the problems please post back.
Best wishes
Mickha

 

[gandalfthegrey]

Hi mickha...

Thanks for the reply...was on hols so only getting back to the PC this week....managed to get into safe mode and run AVG which picked up 5 worms...after clean up all was well until I put XP SP2 onto the PC which then fecked up the PC altogether (black scren) managed to get everything back by doing an uninstall of SP2 (which was scary by the way) so all is well now and I can give him back his PC with everything normal.....thanks again
cheers
gandalf

 

[pgh13]

There are compatibility problems with some motherboards and SP2. It may be possible to update BIOS, but not for the faint hearted

 

[kalamar]

After you get it working again,why not download a couple of the finer Boot/Utility programs in iso formats ? most have about any configuration you could think of.I have several nice ones that let me take control of about any situations.
You can down dload these efficiently using BT (Bit Torrents) I have one that has several different OS's on the cd,many utilities including viri removal programs,I even have one that can re-set 2000 and XP admin passwords. They will let you repair most any problem and re-installing the OS is NOT a choice for me running many different boot configs and OS's.

 

[jonnygel]

If you are still having the problem installing anything with one of the users it may be worth creating a new user, then see if the problem still occurs chances are it wont. Sounds simple I know but it works.