A lot of windows settings reset themselves

[Firstmate]

I made a lot of stupid mistakes, I know...but I'm just trying to recover from them.

I was in the process of installing a theme which required taking ownership/permissions from some system files (explorer.exe, shell32.dll, etc). I made the mistake of renaming them (i.e. explorer.exe.BAK), then ending the explorer.exe process from the task manager.

From my linux partition, I renamed them back to their original names.

Now here comes the messy part:

When I got back onto my Windows partition, many of my applications got crazy.

Chrome can't open my user preferences right now.

Notepad++ totally reset the theme and everything.

mIRC lost it's theme and unloaded all my scripts.


Can anyone not only help me figure out *why* this happened, but also anyway to fix this?

I don't know how Windows could just decide to lock (I use this word loosely to just describe whats happening) up the chrome preferences.

[A Guy]

I'm assuming you are using Windows 7? Suggest running the [url=http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1538-sfc-scannow-command-system-file-checker.html]System File Checker. This WILL reset all your customizations as well, so be aware. You will have to repatch your system to run any 3rd party themes, and any other customization tweaks you have made will be reset. But this will likely restore normal operation. You can make a system image beforehand just in case it doesn't correct your original problem. Either using [url=http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/663-backup-complete-computer-create-image-backup.html]windows built in capability, or a 3rd party software like Acronis or the [url=http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/73828-imaging-free-macrium.html]free Macrium Reflect. A Guy

[brightspark]

Or perhaps, a System Restore back to the time before you made the changes?