A plea for Windows 7 tech help...(Have I locked myself out?)

[JPCJedi]

Okay, get all the "Macs are better" snickering out of your system. I only ever claimed PCs were cheaper!

I can't seem to open the "power options" dialog from the taskbar or control panel...and I can't open the volume control menu...or adjust screen brightness...or access the internet...

The short version is it seems my netbook has disabled all administrator privileges across all my local user accounts. I know how this looks, and I've got Norton antivirus scanning right now, but...is there any chance I did this to myself by accidentally changing some settings?

All I know is I left the computer in sleep mode, but at some point it did a full reboot on its own, thus implementing these new settings. Is this computer infected, or have I just done something stupid with the settings?

Tips, advice, mercy, and canned ham would be greatly appreciated.

It's an HP Mini netbook with Windows 7 starter.

[darthsantkuyl]

i would try doing a system restore if you can access it, sometimes my gadgets and stuff on my desktop go wrong and it works for me.

[JPCJedi]

It seems to have worked!

For the record, I did try to use system restore in the first place, but I it was giving me an error message. I had to go looking for the "restore factory settings" option. I clicked that, but it gave me all the regular restore points anyway that preserved my files. Can't complain. [I use a flash drive; almost nothing was at risk anyway.]

It's also worth noting that, after I'd set the display options to magnify DPI to 125% to cope with the smaller screen, Windows neglects to autocorrect some dialog boxes and displays some yes/no buttons offscreen. I have to click the screen-rotate button to access them with the mouse. So that issue may have contributed to my trouble finding the factory-settings button in system restore.

Somebody really needs to make a small-screen version of Windows that works well. (I know, there's the Windows smart phones, but there must a reason they're unpopular...or just uncommon.)

Anyway, thanks for the reply, and it looks okay from here out. *sigh*