My brother, in his attempt to clean up a computer problem caused some others. Here are the basic problems:
1. When trying to open control panel or
printers from the settings option from
start, it will not open and says "Access
to the specified device, path, or file
is denied".
2. Whenever you try to open most anything
from the desktop, it only gives you the
find all files option only. For
example, I double click on My Computer,
instead of getting the icons for A
drive, etc..., I get the find all files
box to look in My Computer.

Somebody please tell me what is going on and what I can do to fix this.

Reboot. Hold down F8 or the LH Ctrl key to get the boot menu. Choose Command Prompt Only. When you get the C:\> promt, type in; scanreg /restore. Pick a date from before the problem.

If that doesn't work do a fresh install,, I had the same problem, after cleaning the system.

remove brother

Ok, I tried the first option but this occured Christmas Eve and it won't allow me to refresh my registry back that far. 1/27 is as far as I think it will go. That didn't work.

About the fresh install, I'm not sure how to do that. What do I need to install and will it erase anything on my computer? THat's not a problem, but I want to know if I need to save anything first.

I appreciate everyone trying to help. This is driving me crazy.

If you run setup on your Windows CD it will re-install over the top as it were. This usually works without losing stuff but it's always worth backing up anything really important.

It's just possible that the odd program won't run, if so you uninstall/re-install that program. Mostly it works out fine.