Strange Windows problem

[ninethreeeleven]

My uncle did something to his computer. Has no idea what he did and is pretty much completely computer illiterate.

The problem is that when he loads a photo disk into his computer. When windows pops up that list of "What do you want to do with this" there are no choices. Every other type of disk (video, mp3, etc) does have the choices.

It is not just the pop up list. When you right click on the CD drive, and chose properties and the AutoPlay tab, that list is completely blank as well.

Anyone have any idea? I have never seen anything like this before.

 

[ninethreeeleven]

Bump for the Monday lunchtime crew. I have no idea what happened to his box, but I am not even sure how to go about repairing windows on his computer.

Any and all help is welcome.

 

[Slartibartfast]

I've heard of options dissappearing like that in ME before, but I think only a re-install corrected it. You could try doing a repair install. On XP it's pretty painless and even preserves all your settings.

 

[ninethreeeleven]

I have never bothered with a "repair install" on my computer, I have done countless reinstalls of windows (after making sure the drive is blank).

What, if anything, will be lost in doing a Repair Install? I have seen the option for it before when reinstalling Windows but I have never tried it out. If everything stays the same (but the problems are fixed) then I will do it.

 

[Slartibartfast]

I've only ever done a repair install once, and it was on a fairly new install (turned out HD was bad). It kept all of my settings, preferences, start menu stuff, programs, etc, all fine. I think it just reinstalls some of the core OS files.