Re: I can't save or open any file in any application without it saying 'Not respondin
Excellent news, Stee123! So we found the cause and now it's a matter of deciding what is truly needed to fully repair things and get you back to normal. I'm not quite sure what you mean by "seems to be working fine", but I'll cover that in what follows.
That's pretty much up to you - but consider the consequences. The primary problem is that if you use the new account, your default icons and folders (like Documents in the start menu for example) will not be correct - they will be for the new account and not for the old account. You will be able to open and save properly, but it will save to the "wrong" folders - the new ones - and you may not be able to find what you want without entering the full file path to the old account or eventually know which account contains which files (and there may be other consequences such as changes to your desktop, changes to your settings, access to downloads, and access to your e-mail accounts and access to certain programs, and program access to both old and new data, and other things). Furthermore, unless you transfer the data as indicated in the procedures, you will end up with your data split between two separate accounts and separate sets of folders which I at least would find most inconvenient eventually if not immediately. Plus if the old account is corrupt (and if this worked, that would seem to be the case), it may eventually corrupt the files it contains even further to the point where no account is able to access them (and cause other unwelcome changes as well). As time goes on, fixing this division of accounts will become more and more difficult. I recommend you follow the procedures as defined in the article; however, the choice is yours.
Unless you're saying that simply creating the new account made the old account suddenly start working properly again. In that case, just leave the new account as it is and login to your old account and use it as you always have and you'll be just fine (but I would find this difficult to believe as just creating a new account should not repair the old one - the new account may have access to the old account files if it was created as an Administrator account but again, the account folders and information will be new and there WILL be changes that you may not yet have noticed as you probably concentrated primarily on the problem you were having and not looking at other changes and consequences).
In your circumstances, I would take the time (and yes, go through the hassle) of completing the procedure fully and properly with the transfers (again, unless somehow - for reasons I can't fathom - the old account is now working properly when you login to it and not the new account). Still, if the problem occurred once with the old account, it could occur again if the problem was some type of corruption (or whyever else it occurred this last time) and the next time it may not be so easy to fix and you may even lose your data and perhaps all other information as well (whatever isn't backed up and can be restored).
In the end, I can't make this decision for you - I can only offer recommendations and my best advice (and try to explain the consequences). It's up to you whether or not to take it. That's how it works here as opposed to if I were local to you and you hired me to "fix the problem" (which is what I've been doing as the owner of my small computer repair company for about 20 years) - then I'd do what I recommended to you as that is the safest and best solution (certainly long term, and perhaps short term as well).
I hope this helps.
Good luck!
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