I'm working on it. I moved all the files over to my user account and made sure all of the programs are accessible from it as well. I would, however prefer to not lose the CHASE user account if possible. I am not completely comfortable with my abilities to do this correctly without losing something, and thus, don't want to delete.

To clarify what I asked before, should I run all scans etc from CHASE user, which is where the problem started? Or should it not matter because I ran them from the administrator user?

My symptoms currently are:

Can not access system tools on the computer at all, on either user account.
CHASE user desktop is grey, has no icons and seems to be locked from me moving anything there. The default screen normally is blue and says HP.
NATALIE user programs have to be located manually by going to My Computer> c:\program files\(filename)\.exe file. There are no icons unless, I drag the .exe file to the desktop (which I have been doing), and it is not on the program list populated by the start menu either.

What could be causing the absence of my admin tools? This really concerns me.

thanks, nat

Please do this even if you don't have the OS disk. If there is a missing or corrupted file, it will ask for the disk. Please let me know.

•Click on Start > Run and type sfc /scannow then press Enter (note the space between scf and /scannow)
*Let this run undisturbed until the window with the blue progress bar goes away
SFC - Which stands for System File Checker, retrieves the correct version of the file from %Systemroot%\System32\Dllcache or the Windows installation source files, and then replaces the incorrect file.It took a long time to scan but when I came back to the computer there was no message of any kind.Could you please run Unhide again.

Run the BitDefender Online scanner

Agree to the license and then select Scan. DO NOT CHANGE THE OPTIONS TO SHOW ALL FILES SCANNED. That will make your logs huge and we don't need to see clean files.

Once Bitdefender completes the scan:
Click-on the Detected Problems tab.
Then select Click here to export the scan report.

When the window comes up to save the report, change the Save as type: box to:
Text (Tab Delimited) (*.txt) and then in the File name box enter change to bdscan then click Save.

This will save a file named bdscan.txt. I would suggest saving it to the Desktop so you can easily find it. (take notice of where you save it so you can find it later).
This bdcan.txt file will actually contain HTML code that we can easily view later while reviewing your log. All we have to do is rename the file to bdscan.html.

If you do not follow these step, you will have an incorrect log or worse a log summary which is USELESS to us.

Post the bdscan.txt file as an Attachment.
I ran unhide again. There was no change from that. Then I ran bit defender from the link you included, but the process was not how you outlined (their website may have changed). I did NOT run free anti virus or anything else. It was the free online scan. It did NOT give me an option to change the files scanned, nor did I see any deleted problems tab. It only gave me an option to start scan (which I did) and then it automatically made a log in a .txt file which I saved to my desktop and I attached it as instructed. The log stated "No infections found". The only thing I changed was the name of the file. I included the date, in case this scan is run and saved in the future.
--Nat

[year+ old attachment deleted by admin]I would say that your computer is clean. Unfortunately, I'm not well versed in user accounts and I suspect that is where your present problems are. I think we should do some cleanup and you can then start a new thread in the appropriate software forum.

To remove all of the tools we used and the files and folders they created do the following:
Double click OTL.exe.

• Click the CleanUp button.
  
• Select Yes when the "Begin cleanup Process?" prompt appears.
  
• If you are prompted to Reboot during the cleanup, select Yes.
  
• The tool will delete itself once it finishes.