N
Nightowl
Hello all. . . hoping someone can help me with a strange one. This is a
bit long; please bear with me.
I created a new user today. When I logged in to it, a Notepad window
opened, showing a desktop.ini file. I tracked this down to the
desktop.ini in the user Startup folder, which had somehow lost its
Hidden and System attributes, thus making it "run". Putting them back
via a Command window solved that, but then I noticed other files were
affected.
All the files that should have been marked Hidden and/or System -- *and
that were "inherited" from the Default User* -- had lost their
attributes. That is, all the desktop.ini's in Docs and Settings\username
Application Data, Local Settings, Send to, Start Menu and all its sub-
folders, plus ntuser.dat, ntuser.dat.log and ntuser.dat.ref.log. Folders
were not affected.
But desktop.ini's that were generated by the new profile itself in My
Documents, Favorites and Recent (those folders in the Default User are
empty) were correctly shown as HSA. So was ntuser.ini, and ntuser.pol
was RHSA.
My first thought was that the Default User profile was corrupted in some
way; but when I check it, all the problem files are shown correctly as
HS. I tried again several times, creating both Limited users and Admin
users. Same problem each time.
Then I started wondering if perhaps there was a fault with the User
Accounts applet, so I tried creating a new user and then copying the
Default profile to it manually, as in Knowledge Base article 811151:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;811151
When copying the affected files Windows asked me if I wanted to replace
the existing desktop.ini, but though it appeared to do this, the
attributes were not copied over :-(
Deciding that the Default User profile must after all be corrupt, I
backed it up, then used User Profiles in My Computer > Properties >
Advanced to create a new one from my Administrator settings. I followed
the instructions in How to Create a Custom User Profile, in:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;319974
But -- even though all the files had correct attributes in the original
Administrator profile, and the new Default User profile made from it --
new users still have the file attributes missing.
I can't paste an HS file and overwrite/replace the existing one, even
though Windows offers and apparently does that. Even if I open a Command
prompt, change the attributes on a file to H and S then try to copy it
over the original, It seems not to see the difference in attributes as a
modification. But copying and pasting from Default User to a folder
where there is no previous version works perfectly well; the file comes
over complete with all attributes.
So it's not a system-wide I-can't-copy problem: it *only* happens when
creating new users, whichever way I do it. There appears to be nothing
wrong with either my original Default User or Administrator profiles,
and I can't think of anything else to try. . . I could of course just
change the file settings manually, but I'm uneasy; I don't know why this
is not working or what else it might affect.
Oh, and the computer is a four-year-old Dell Dimension 4300, 1.7GHz,
512MB of RAM, running XP2 Pro SP2 fully patched. Unfortunately I don't
know when the problem might have started.
Please, help anyone?
P.S. The desktop.ini that ran in Notepad and started all this was the
same as the one here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/330132
but I think it's a red herring: the article doesn't mention the file
running because of loss of attributes, or of any other files being
affected. Also it wasn't in All Users but in my Username Startup folder.
Please help if you can think of anything. . .
bit long; please bear with me.
I created a new user today. When I logged in to it, a Notepad window
opened, showing a desktop.ini file. I tracked this down to the
desktop.ini in the user Startup folder, which had somehow lost its
Hidden and System attributes, thus making it "run". Putting them back
via a Command window solved that, but then I noticed other files were
affected.
All the files that should have been marked Hidden and/or System -- *and
that were "inherited" from the Default User* -- had lost their
attributes. That is, all the desktop.ini's in Docs and Settings\username
Application Data, Local Settings, Send to, Start Menu and all its sub-
folders, plus ntuser.dat, ntuser.dat.log and ntuser.dat.ref.log. Folders
were not affected.
But desktop.ini's that were generated by the new profile itself in My
Documents, Favorites and Recent (those folders in the Default User are
empty) were correctly shown as HSA. So was ntuser.ini, and ntuser.pol
was RHSA.
My first thought was that the Default User profile was corrupted in some
way; but when I check it, all the problem files are shown correctly as
HS. I tried again several times, creating both Limited users and Admin
users. Same problem each time.
Then I started wondering if perhaps there was a fault with the User
Accounts applet, so I tried creating a new user and then copying the
Default profile to it manually, as in Knowledge Base article 811151:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;811151
When copying the affected files Windows asked me if I wanted to replace
the existing desktop.ini, but though it appeared to do this, the
attributes were not copied over :-(
Deciding that the Default User profile must after all be corrupt, I
backed it up, then used User Profiles in My Computer > Properties >
Advanced to create a new one from my Administrator settings. I followed
the instructions in How to Create a Custom User Profile, in:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;319974
But -- even though all the files had correct attributes in the original
Administrator profile, and the new Default User profile made from it --
new users still have the file attributes missing.
I can't paste an HS file and overwrite/replace the existing one, even
though Windows offers and apparently does that. Even if I open a Command
prompt, change the attributes on a file to H and S then try to copy it
over the original, It seems not to see the difference in attributes as a
modification. But copying and pasting from Default User to a folder
where there is no previous version works perfectly well; the file comes
over complete with all attributes.
So it's not a system-wide I-can't-copy problem: it *only* happens when
creating new users, whichever way I do it. There appears to be nothing
wrong with either my original Default User or Administrator profiles,
and I can't think of anything else to try. . . I could of course just
change the file settings manually, but I'm uneasy; I don't know why this
is not working or what else it might affect.
Oh, and the computer is a four-year-old Dell Dimension 4300, 1.7GHz,
512MB of RAM, running XP2 Pro SP2 fully patched. Unfortunately I don't
know when the problem might have started.
Please, help anyone?
P.S. The desktop.ini that ran in Notepad and started all this was the
same as the one here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/330132
but I think it's a red herring: the article doesn't mention the file
running because of loss of attributes, or of any other files being
affected. Also it wasn't in All Users but in my Username Startup folder.
Please help if you can think of anything. . .