A friend is having problems with his Windows XP machine. His son was messing around on the computer(not internet) and now all of a sudden, none of his "My Documents" "My Pictures" or "My Computer" folders will open. When we clicked on them, it was like we never clicked on them at all.. nothing happened. Is there any way to fix this without knowing how it got messed up in the first place?

First step: Run a System Restore to a point prior to problem.

Start/Run/ %systemroot%\system32\restore\rstrui.exe

Let us know if that works.

Sorry about not posting enough info.. We did run System Restore, virus scan, spybot, etc. All clean .. I am assuming System Restore did work .. he did it when I was not there and said everything finished fine...but no go with the folders.

Do things work in Safe Mode?


Also perhaps:
Try going to IE > Tools > Internet Options > Advanced tab and disable third-party browser extensions.


Also if you have a full version XP CD try sfc /scannow
start/run/ sfc /scannow
(note the space between sfc & /scannow).