WIN XP folder Properties Problem

[kMaN]

For some reason when I right click a folder and choose properties, nothing happens. I cannot look at the properties of a folder? Is there a setting I have turned off? I have already ran sfc /scannow and I have admin privelages. I don't know what to do now.

[Colin]

kMaN do you have problems with anything else or just that? When did this start happening?<BR><BR>There is no setting that I know of that turns off viewing of properties. I know I have the same problem sometimes though when my system is under intense load.

[kMaN]

No, nothing seems to be working out of the ordinary. I am pretty confused about this one. No, my system is not under any intense load.

[Colin]

Hmm... When did this problem start happening though? It was working when you installed yoru WindowsXP right? Did you recently install something?

[Iceman]

Look in the policy editor...someone might have 'accidently' enabled a ban on viewing the properties of a file

[kMaN]

Colin, it just started happening the other day. I am confused as you, lol. I signed on to my guest account and I can look in the properties of those folders that way. Iceman, how do I do what you are talking about, I don't know how to do it.

[Iceman]

Go to the Start > Run and then i think it is 'poledit' or 'poledit.msc' and from here you get tonnes of options.<BR><BR>btw this only works on XP pro

[Mango87]

Hey colin I have a question for you, do you know why when I change a property in folder, In the customise section, and put it on to all sub folders aswell, why is it changing other folders aswell?

[realin]

I would suggest u to look in to task manager and see for any abnormal task this may Be any kinda virus or a ************************ like that....

cheers !!

[jerryp]

I was having a similar problem with the properties page, the system properties page, search, IIS and a few others.

Anyhow I went into the event viewer (Start/ Administrator tools / Event viewer) and found that 2 services were not starting properly. They were stuck with a "STARTING" status. The first was "Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP)" and the second was "World Wide Web Publishing".

The resolution was trial and error however this is what worked for me.

I have 2 NIC cads (RJ45 and wireless) and usually only use the wireless.
I disabled my RJ45 NIC. I also have a network at home without a domain.
I then went into system properties / computer name tab / Network ID button. I redid my computer name, etc. settings via the wizard. I retyped everything the same as it was. I restarted the computer and this fixed the SMTP service. THE WWW service was still not starting.

I then disabled the WWW service ( start / adinistrator tools / Services) and restarted the computer. Thus when I restated the WWW service would not start. I then went into IIS manager. Just looked around but did not change anything. At least I could get into IIS manager again.

I went back into services and manually started the WWW service. This time it started just fine. I changed the startup type back to automatic and restarted my computer.

Everything is now working and I am getting no more errors in the event logs.

I don't know why this happened and I have run a few virus scans with no viruses, etc. found.

Hope this helps someone else. :)