Read-Only nightmare

Hey guys, after making my introduction I'm here to tell of my nightmare with service pack 3 and what it did to my pc.

After installing sp3, I began to have trouble installing programs onto my pc. Normally I wouldn't care but the problem grew when my son wanted to play an online game called "Runescape" which to my knowledge is an online multiplayer game run on Java applets in a IExplorer window. Now the game requires periodic updates to maintain it's performance and up untill sp3 its been working fine (my son had no trouble playing 2 hours a day on it for a year). After sp3, the game would display a window saying that it is unable to update the game bcause I wasnt the admin of the computer (which is false) or my HDD was write-protected. This is when I thought the problem became serious.

From then on, I cannot install a single program onto my computer, no matter how big or how simple the program (no even stuff like quicktime). They would always display something saying my HDD is write protected or the files it's trying to install are being used (which are all false) or I'm not the admin or a combination of that. The only folder that I seem to be able to install stuff in was the My Documents folder (weird huh?).

Going to my C:drive, I realized that EVERYTHING, every file, every folder became read-only, and changing it off one moment would do nothing as it would go back to read only immediately after I check the properties tab again! Copying and pasting C:files and folders proves impossible (error box saying that my disk is write protected) but deletion is allowed. Removing sp3 does not solve the problem (I had to remove it in safe-mode, took forever) and now many programs (including video players requiring codecs) cannot work as they require to modify some of their own files but cannot.

Sys Recovery does not help, nothing seems to be working. Any light onto my problem would be extremely appreciated!

Sorry about the long first post, thought it was well to give a good background to my ailment.
Derg

 

Sorry I just had to bump this post because it's becoming serious and Microsoft's been no help at all!

Need some help!!!
Derg

 

This might also be a good time to try Dial-A-Fix.

It addresses several obscure issues and the MS Installer is one of the prominent ones.

It's a stand alone program so you wouldn't have a catch 22 installing it.

EDIT: Oops, I just noticed that Evan Omo has already suggested Dial-A-Fix. In that case, I second the motion!