File viewing problem on Win 2000 & IE 6.0

[Guest]

Win 2000 somehow stopped making files in folders visible. I can see folders
as trees and each folder property shows the number of files in each folder,
but I can not see files (ex. ".doc", ".xls" files). I have to go to each
program and open a file from "File">"Open".

IE 6.0 also stopped functioning at the same time (it doesn't load anything)
and I can not reinstall/uninstall IE. I downloaded IE 6 pack but "Set up"
always fails. Outlook Express stopped functioning, too.

Virus weren't found. Firewall was disabled. Folder options were fixed to
"default setting". But none of these worked to fix problems.

I would appreciate your advice so much!

 

[Charlie Tame]

Hi Jay,

W2000's file system allows a number of security and visibility options which
might explain some of the problems you seem to be having. Can you remember
anything triggering this behaviour, such as installing a program,
downloading anything or changing anything related to "Sharing" or
"Security". Did you recently do anything with disk drives? Someone else
might get this right away but I'm looking for clues as to whether this is
really an explorer problem or something else.

Charlie

 

[Guest]

Charlie,

thanks for your quick response!

I had problem in getting many pop-up ads on IE, so I dowloaded a pop-up
blocker "mirrar(?)" from CNET. com. This free software not only failed
blocking pop-ups, it added an additional tool bar on IE that display more
ads! I tried to get rid of this programs and other programs that this pop-up
blocker might have installed on my PC.

I removed unfamiliar programs from "Add/Remove" option and deleted a few
programs by going into PROGRAM folder. Files became invisible one day after
I deleted these unknown programs. I don't remember what I deleted and can
not remove/uninstall IE 6 in PROGRAM folder .

Any advice?

 

[Charlie Tame]

eek!

Well I am not fully up to date with spyware removal and the tools to do it
but now you have given this info someone might recognize it right away. A
google search reveals several sites that claim to have removal tools but
some of them don't look too good either so I won't quote them - up to you if
you want to search yourself of course.

No doubt now we have a problem identified someone will provide some links
but it may well be that explorer or IE or some common part is broken so
let's wait and see if anyone can say for sure. Thanks for coming back with
more concise info.

Charlie