I have a Mac powerbook G4 with the OLD OSX Jaguar operating system. I accidentally deleted some folders in the Applications section thinking they were nothing important but soon realized my mistake. Now, when I click on the System Preferences nothing happens and now I can't set the Date and Time. HELP! FrankDid you check the trash bin?

Do you happen to use any backup software? If so, restore from the backup prior to when this happened.

You MAY need to reinstall the entire operating system, once a file is deleted in the Mac OS, you can not get them back. Do you know what file(s) you deleted from the application folder?

Also, have you TRIED some of the simple steps like rebooting and then trying system preferences again?

Removing something from the application folder should not have affected your date & time or your system preferences. I could see you having some issues if you deleted some of the utilities in applications/utilities... but it still shouldn't cause what you're claiming.