Windows Explorer Has a Mind of its Own

So this is an odd problem. I am in explorer trying to organize my music folder. I create folders, rename them, move files from one place to another and then windows explorer undoesa lot of what I did. The folders I've just created disappear and many of the songs get moved to a default folder called "unknown artist".Even though I renamed the files and manipulated the properties (album name, song # etc) the files also change back to a default naming scheme (01 Track 01, etc). Even though this isn't always the case i have noticed thatit happens more often when you hit the back arrow to go back to a folder I was just in instead of "clicking" on the folder.

It's kind of frustrating. Oh also, sometimes it doesn't recognize the contents on a DVD I put in either. It'll show up as a blank disk until I reboot then it notices the files. The DVD-rom is preinstalled, not an upgrade.

Thanks for any help you can give

 

My guess is a virus or dodgy install as this problem is effecting windows explorer itself, with no error messages. Run a virus scan first and see if that picks anything up. There are free antivirus's such as avast which are better at checking for virus's than most av's you buy in the shops.

 

Thanks I'll try that but the computer is only a week old and it came with Vista so the install problem would be a "factory" one. I'll see what AV sees

 

Nope, no virus

 

The file/folder problem could be explained by the presence of "junctions" in Vista that replaced the "My xxx" folders in XP. These are links, not actual files or folders --but Vista is supposed to stop you from changing them; so, you should be getting error messages about not having sufficient priviledges. If you have UAC turned off, that might suppress the error messages and look like the operation worked, when it didn't.



The not reading the DVD when inserted is a more serious problem. That's not related to UAC settings. Have you messed with Autoload in any way?



Can you return the machine for a refund?

 

Ah, so i'll try and minimize changes to a "My" folder. I will move all the files to a folder that I create with generic name and see if this stops the nuisance.

I found on the MS website that a known problem exists where if you have Windows Media Player open at the same time that you insert a disc it sometimes doesn't recognize it as having files on it. I'm not positive that everytime I have the problem Media Player is open but it's possible.

Thanks for your advice!