HELP..Docs and Settings has me locked out?

[harsaphes]

So my documents and settings folder will no longer allow me access. WTF?...it says..Location is not available...documents and settings is not accessible. access is denied.
Whats going on and how do i fix it.
Also folder has a little arrow on the lower left corner pointing to the right...almost like its a shortcut.

Oh Vista Ultimate 64

[Nenu]

Try and "take ownership" of the folder and contents.
If that fails, you may have malware on your PC that holds your data to ransom, its doing the rounds again.
Its a bit early to know if that is the case though but felt you should be aware of the possibility.

[JonathanJ]

Documents and Settings in Vista no longer exists, what you see now is simply a junction to the new users folder, called "Users."

[harsaphes]

how do i Take Ownership of the folder?

[harsaphes]

Wait, this just showed up today, i have had my system running for months...so where is my pictures, my videos ect that use to be in that folder?

[harsaphes]

ok, so i see the folder called Users, so everthing that use to be in Doc and Settings is now there?

[Nenu]

how do i Take Ownership of the folder?

I can use google for you and get you a link, alternatively, you can look it up too.
I put it in quotes so you know what to search for.

[harsaphes]

yeah, thats not it....see post above your first one

[Nenu]

Not sure who you are talking to but...

Try to access the folder directly through
Documents & settings/%user%/My Documents (thats for XP, it will be similar for other OS's)

[darkpaw]

Nenu, its not that way for Vista and newer. Documents and settings no longer exists.

All of the data is in users\%username%\

The items under documents and settings are only shortcuts for compatibility with programs that hardcoded the paths instead of using the API shortcuts. If you can't access your files directly through the users folder, you've probably been hit by one of the ransomware programs as mentioned above.

Some of them can be decrypted (can search on security sites after you use an AV to identify which ones), others can't (hope you've got a backup).

What happens if you do

dir \users\%username%\documents

from a command prompt?

[harsaphes]

well actually clicking on the docs folder does nothing..as stated...but going to users folders everything is there....but the odd thing is this only appeared in my system today and i have had vista installed for months.
you can just right click on the start menu and go to users.

[Nenu]

Good news :)
Its probably an invalid shortcut to my documents.

[JonathanJ]

Well, that's just the way things are by default in Vista. Just hide the Documents and Settings link and ignore it is my advice.

[harsaphes]

Well, that's just the way things are by default in Vista. Just hide the Documents and Settings link and ignore it is my advice.

You keep saying that but why would it only now show up like that in my system?

[ryan_975]

On the 20 dozen or so computers I've clean installed Vista on to, "Documents and Settings" has never opened in Explorer. It's always thrown the "Access Denied" error message. I don't know why it would have been different on your system.

[Stanley Pain]

On Vista, Documents and Settings no longer exists. What you see is just a "junction" for backwards compatibility. Just pretend it's not there, and use the /Users/Username/blah.