System32 Window Coming Up Instead of Document Folder

  • Thread starter Thread starter ProblemCompCA
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ProblemCompCA

This JUST happened. I don't know what it is or what it means but all of a
sudden, that black window started coming up instead of any desktop or My
Documents folder, any folder from anywhere.

I didn't mess with anything in any system folder or run any new program,
this literally happened about 15 minutes ago.

What is, why did this happen, and how can I fix it?

Thanks.

Screenshot: http://i44.tinypic.com/29or2bs.png
 
Nothing? This is still going on and it's driving me crazy. I can't access any
of my folders.
 
ProblemCompCA said:
This JUST happened. I don't know what it is or what it means but all of a
sudden, that black window started coming up instead of any desktop or My
Documents folder, any folder from anywhere.

I didn't mess with anything in any system folder or run any new program,
this literally happened about 15 minutes ago.

What is, why did this happen, and how can I fix it?

Thanks.

Screenshot: http://i44.tinypic.com/29or2bs.png
Click to expand...

Fix File Associations. Use the folder, directory and any other
applicable fixes.
http://dougknox.com/xp/file_assoc.htm
 
I tried the Folder Association fix and it didn't work
Click to expand...

Of course it did not work.

A file association problem makes itself known in an entirely different
manner. What you see is a DOS window, sometimes known as a command
prompt window (or maybe the other way around). How it got there we
can figure out later. It is not even in the "right" place - C:
\Document and Settings\whatever...).

It is in the icons folder - have you done anything regarding icons
lately? Nothing wrong with that, but this box is not where I would
expect it to be unless somebody or something changed it on purpose.

To get out of it, close the window by clicking the X in the window or
type exit <enter> at the prompt in the window. Do things get better?
How does it work after that?

If you reboot, do you continue to have this problem?

Can you make this happen any time you want? How do you do that?

Sooner or later, somebody is going to say you have malware or
something (which could be true), so download the free Malwarebytes AV
program, update the database, run a complete scan. It will take a
while to scan.

I politely say that I don't care what other AV program(s) you have,
and you better have one. An AV scanner only knows about what it is
programmed to know about and none of them know everything.
Malwarebytes is free, finds things others miss and has earned some
credibility. I can't say that for some others.

Don't download a bunch of stuff you don't know what it is without
somebody telling you why. None of this "try this, try this, try
this..." stuff. You want to fix it and fix it now. Not try things.

Please report back and we'll go from there.
 
I tried the Folder Association fix and it didn't work
Click to expand...

Oh yeah - the screen shot helps.

What is that CHMAP thing on the desktop?

The desktop wallpaper is not one that comes with Windows. Did you
create it? You may want to switch back temporarily to wallpaper=none
and eliminate that from your equation.

Why is there an icons folder? Who created it? It is highlighted
meaning somebody has clicked it. Are you doing stuff with icons and
wallpaper? That is fine, but we need to know some details.

If you are in that DOS box in the icons folder, there appears to be a
scroll bar on the right. Scroll down. Find anything or is it jut one
big empty window? You tried to type exit in there - what happened.

If you double click that icons folder, does the folder open or do you
end up in another DOS window? Is that how you got there?

Try to get another shot of the entire desktop when it is broken and
post it. Before you come back here to tell us about it, make sure
when your post from where you are you see the entire desktop. Snagit
is a good free 30 day tool for screen shots. There are others, but I
have a license for Snagit, so I like it best.

Are you logged in as Administrator? That is probably not wise, but
another discussion if you are.

See you soon.
 
Elmo said:
Fix File Associations. Use the folder, directory and any other
applicable fixes.
http://dougknox.com/xp/file_assoc.htm
Click to expand...

Click the links for the fixes you need. I suspect you need the Folder
fix, and/or the Directory fix. Since any of the fixes just make
registry changes to the standard settings, it won't hurt you to try one
that doesn't really relate.

The Folder Association fix downloads "folder_reg.zip". If you
double-click the zip file it should open and you'll see one file titled
"folder_reg.reg". If you extract that file and save it to the Desktop,
or wherever, a double-click on it will merge the file into the registry.
You can edit the file in Wordpad first if you want to see the changes
it makes.

The reason the file is zipped, I imagine, is because clicking on a link
to a .reg file usually just opens it as text within your browser.
Unzipping to the Desktop, on the other hand, makes it a file that can be
merged with a double-click, or a right-click, "Merge" option.
 
ProblemCompCA said:
I tried the Folder Association fix and it didn't work
Click to expand...

Sometimes the Folder associations get damaged and Search opens when you
double-click a folder. In that case, the folder fix would repair the
association. This seemed similar where the wrong folder was called,
instead of the Search option.

If you have weird Desktop utilities running, they can be the cause.
 
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