User: ASP.NET Machine Account???

In XP Pro if you don't see a security tab, go to Folder Options in Control
Panel, View Tab, and temporarily uncheck "Use simple file sharing" last item
in list).

Apparently you did use EFS. Hopefully this is an ownership/rights issue
and the above will resolve it.

In the future, please post XP related questions to XP newsgroups.

[papuly2k]

firstly i apologize for putting an XP issue on the Vista forum - in my panic i had googled - and this is where the search led me to... and so I was overjoyed and did not check the url - and that it did mention vista-help... so I am sorry for the inconvenience caused but thanks to both of you for all the help and support... will try the folder un-checking option and see. thanks.