Windows XP file access problem

Windows XP SP2

The following problem is suddenly happening on both my systems.

I tried to run an installer from the My Documents folder today and got the following message from Windows "Windows cannot access the specified device, path, or file. You may not have the appropriate permissions to access the item." I am not sure exactly when this cropped up but I was able to run files from there as usual only a few days ago. Now no installer will run as it normally would. I am an administrator and I also tried running the files from Safe Mode with no luck. I then noticed that on the files that will not open I have an option when I right click them and select properties to "unblock" them next to a statement that reads "This file came from another computer and might be blocked to help protect this computer." If I unblock the item I can then run it.

These files did not come from another computer however (they were downloaded) and many have existed on the system for quite a while. The only thing I can think of that I have changed lately is that I updated Avast, MBAM, and SAS signatures and I updated Quicktime to the latest version. I do run Returnil's Anti-Execute but I haven't had problems with it changing anything like this before and I am not sure that it even could.

My questions:

Is anyone else suddenly experiencing this?

What could have caused this change, could the Quicktime update have caused it?

Other than clicking unblock on each installer's exe or a system restore is there a way to revert this?

Thanks

 

OK, I tried downloading a new installer and placing it in My Documents, it does not have the block. Also, I was wrong about one thing earlier, not every installer's exe has the block but many do.

 

OK, I went ahead and went to each exe that was blocked and unblocked it and they will now run. Alas, a new problem has now started which may or may not have anything to do with the other, but I assume it does.

Now when I attempt to download any program, I immediately get two icons in the download location but the program doesn't really download normally. I downloaded Launchy as an example. I get one icon that has the apps name, LaunchSetup212.exe but doesn't have the correct icon and one icon named LaunchySetup212.exe.part, I assume this means the download did not complete.

Oh, by the way...Avast, SAS, and MBAM all come up clean.

Any ideas what may be causing these problems??

 

I reinstalled Opera and I can download with it but not Firefox. I am not sure what is going on to cause these problems on both my systems.

 

Uninstalled Firefox and reinstalled. Tried downloading again and got a message in Firefox stating that the download was blocked by my "security policy".

Something has definitely changed some security settings on my systems but I don't know what or how.

 

OK, problems solved.

Although no one here was able to help, I did finally find the solution to the problems I was having. Guess what...the problems were my own fault .

I had changed a setting in Internet Explorer's security for the Internet zone not long ago since I only use IE for Windows Updates and those sites are in my Trusted Zone for IE. Since I don't use IE for normal web browsing I was trying to lock the Internet zone down tighter in case any program should ever try to launch IE. Apparently though, the settings in the internet zone can affect not only IE but other things as well such as the security settings of files on the computer as well as Firefox since it now honors some of IE's security settings (which to me is ignorant).

Anyway, here is the solution if anyone is curious. Go to Control Panel>Internet Options>Security>Internet and be sure that "Launching applications and unsafe files" is not disabled (I set it to prompt). Voila' I can now download with FF again and shouldn't have files getting blocked again without a prompt.

 

Oops, posted to soon. While I can download I am still getting the security block on downloaded programs. Back to the research.

Edit: OK, although the block thing still shows under security after right clicking a file, it doesn't block it automatically and state I don't have access permissions etc. It is back to how I have always known it, it prompts to ask if I want to run the file when the file is accessed.

So once again I think I am good to go.

 

I encountered the same problem and was never able to fix it either.
But I found out, if I download many items at one time, I can move those items to another partition and they will loose that security lock.
That's what I do now. Move my downloads from the download folder to another partition/hard drive then move them back. It's better then having to unlock each file individually.

 

I was able to fix it, see my last two posts above.