Windows vista is messed up?

Question

alright, so I was gone for a couple of weeks and decided to leave my computer running. When i got back, i was logged out (obviously a windows update), but when i logged in, Explorer automatically stopped responding (and for some reason, I has the windows classic theme). So, I restart my computer and boot it in safe mode. When i log in, it works, but i'm still running windows classic. I start up MS CONFIG, end a few start up tasks, then boot up regularly. This time i log in, but all my programs report that they are missing certain files, and my theme is now a mix between windows vista and windows classic (start bar is vista, rest is classic).

Well, anyways, my question is, what happened to my computer while i was gone and how can i fix it?

P.S. I'm running home premium 32 bit

Answer 1

i learned a valuable lesson 6 computers later dont mess with what you dont know i say the first answer is the best run system restore back to the time you know it was running good and that way the computer does it the right way

Answer 2

I agree with the other person. System restore will NOT work. Vista decided to update itself and since it was an UNATTENDED update, it circumvented your settings and decided to roll back whatever you did to customize your machine. (as wrong as that is, thats the way it works.) Also, since I do not know what you did, it will be next to impossible to fix it remotely.  

Answer 3

run system restore. seeing only updates happened while you are gone, that's the most likely cause. if that don't help, run spybot since XPAntivirus (which is spyware) has been so popular lately

Answer 4

Without knowing what you did to personalize your machine in the first place, I am not sure this place will help out a whole lot as we are not right there in front of the screen. On a side note, Don't you just love how Micro$ucks decides what is best for you and forces their own thing on you after an unattended update? I know what you are going through as it has happened to me and a few of my family members. (tis why, I turned off auto updates.) That screams big brother is watching you.

Edited to add: System restore most likely will not change a d**n thing as it was a microsoft update that came through.

Answer 5

First of all, if you are ever  going to be gone for more than a day you should always shut down your computer.....beyond the whole "green thing", if you aren't there to monitor anything can happen, and did.  Secondly if all that seems to be missing or messed up is your theme and the mediaserver isn't loading, you can restore those without too much trouble.  First go to your start and click on run or search for msconfig (depending on how your start lists) if you selected run then type msconfig and click on okay, otherwise just click on the msconfig.exe....go to the startup tab and find mediaserver and also look for any goofy startup items...be sure to read the names very carefully as 1explore.exe is not iexplore.exe.....you could have malware, spyware or the like embedded in your startup, now that you have that....save changes and go to the control panel or right click the desktop and choose personalization....just turn on a simple theme (at first) and also change the properties of the start menu (uncheck classic)....reboot and see what happens, if all is okay, all you need to do is reset your personalization and then run microsoft update......you need to check the history and see if there was an update that came through while you were gone.....if there was go directly to the microsoft update site and find the "offline" file or a description of it; download and re-install it...or you may be able to select it from the list that opens within Vista's update window.  Mediaserver.exe is not a crucial program, in fact it belongs to the software TVersity Media Server or D-Link Media Server or TVersity Media Server 0.9.0.4a or Intel® Viiv™ Software or TVersity Media Server 0.9.8.2a or TVersity Media Server 0.9.10.3b or ATI MCE Transcode or Intel(R) Viiv(TM) Media Server or Intel(R) Viiv(TM) Software or  Mediabolic.

So if you do not have any of those you'll want to get rid of that file...you have to make sure its not in the starup (the msconfig file) also check if there is a service attached to it; go to control panel then admin tools then services, have a look at the automatic servies and again read them carefully......disable any suspicious ones, or at least set them to manual (system critical services cannot be changed so don't worry too much, but still be careful)...then search for the file, and delete it.

Of course the simplest solution of all is to reinstall everything but that's a last resort.

Answer 6

Do you have SP1 installed? If not I'd recommend you download it and install it. Or if you want to ditch windows all together go to www.ubuntu.com and download a burn a disc for linux.

Answer 7

turn off your computer. turn it on and hold f8. choose the option that says something about restoring your computer(its been a while since ive done it) and then you can choose a time to jump back to in your computers life. it sucks when stuff like that happens :/, hope you fix it.