"Failed to Expand Shell Folder Constant "userappdata"

Hi,

It was suggested by Net_Surfer I come to this forum for help before my computer's malware problem can be solved...please help!

I am trying to install apps such as MBAM (malware bytes) and my system would not allow me to do so due to "Internal Error: Failed to Expand Shell Folder Constant "userappdata". I went to the folder location and unhid this folder and went as far as changing the "useappdata" folder property and un-clicked the "Read-Only" box (which is not a checked box but rather a blue filled-in box) and it went through the motions of going through all the files within the folder to change the "read-only" attribute. Unfortunately when it was done, the folder is still "Read-Only".

I am the Administrator of the machine under User Account attributes and I have full permission (in the security tab of the folder) to this "userappdata" folder but I cannot make the folder not "Read-only" as the system would not allow me to make this change. I am not sure why this is as I've never had this problem until I left the machine idle for about a month and when I started using it again, this problem popped up.

Also, the registry is Hkey_Current_User_...\User Shell Folder\

Name - Appdata
Type - REG_EXPAND_SZ
Data - %APPDATA%

But there is a strange entry in this folder

Name - 374DE290-123F-4565-9164-39C4925E467B
Type - REG_EXPAND_SZ
Data - %USERPROFILE%\downloads

Not sure if this has anything to do with the problems. Thanks for your help in advance.

Cathay

Found a solution by comparing the registry on a computer I'm fixing to my own Vista machine.

I think the spyware responsible for this makes a simple change to keep you from installing anything new... go to the UserShellFolders folder in your registry, the one where you were told to delete the Recent folder. Look at the APPDATA folder and notice that it has the path $APPDATA$. On my good comp, the path was %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming

I changed the path on the bad comp to %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming and rebooted into safe mode. I was able to install MBAM without a hitch and am currently running a scan the machine.

Hope this helps... good luck!

-zenchronus

Hi zenchronus...

That worked beautifully...thanks a million! Now I can get on with fixing the malware problem.

Cathay

Hi there,

It seems that i have the same or a very similar problem.

I am not however a very experienced windows user and would appreciate a little more detail in what i have to do to solve this.

Specifically should I back up the entire registry before changing the value, or/and create a System Restore Point?

Did your scan using malware find any infection(s)?

I appreciate any help that you can provide,

Many thanks.

pls can u give a detail how to this? i got the same problem but i do'nt know how to edit or where to start........pls someone help me....

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/886549

Solved this myself googling an error message from Super Anti-Spyware. Hope this helps. Keep scrolling to check all the registry settings manually, the fixit thing doesn't work