Green encrypted files, administrator rights, etc

Sorry I guess this is off-topic, though it's on my computer I do nothing with but SONAR.  I'm going in literal circles here, baffling.
 
I may have had a virus, Norton found one, not sure if that has anything to do with it.
 
The ONLY things I can think of that I've done to this computer was A) run a full system scan with Norton, which as I said found some trojan virus and removed it and B) updated Omnisphere from 1.5 to 1.5.6 and updated the Moog patch set.
 
So I have two sets of files (that I've found, so far) that now act corrupted, both of which I've used very recently, in the last day or two.  One is 'Rumble' in Kontakt (think I have the latest full version of Kontact, 5.0.2.5641) and the other is an ACID library called 'Check Your Breaks'.  They are on completely separate physical drives.
 
So I couldn't figure out what the hell until I found out in Windows Vista explorer they both show up as green which apparently means encrypted file.  But I'm unable to un-encrypt the files without getting prompted for 'administrator rights' and then getting denied.  Driving me crazy.
 
Why would they suddenly be green?  What would cause this?  Like I said I've used both of them very recently.
 
So lets say I want to un-encrypt them.  I do this:
 
- Go to file properties and click on the 'details' tab and it says 'owner' is 'administrators.'
 
- So I go to 'security' tab and click on 'edit' permissions.
 
- I click on 'authenticated users' and click on allow 'full control'.  Also click on 'users' and do the same, allow 'full control'.
 
- Close dialogue box.
 
- Re-open file properties and click on the 'advanced' tab, de-select 'encrypt contents to secure data'.
 
- Try to close dialogue box but it I get the need 'administrator rights' prompt and then it says access denied.
 
- Re-open file properties, click 'security' tab, click 'advanced', click over to 'owner', click 'edit' and change it to my username.
 
- Close the dialogue box.  Re-open it, now when I click on 'details' it lists me as owner.
 
- Try to deselect 'encrypt contents' and get the same 'administrator rights' prompt.
 
It's like I'm going in circles.  Sorry I've never dealt with this before, can anyone shed any light on this?
 
Thanks a ton!
 
Matt Koskenmaki
 

Matt, have you tried a System Restore? I've had some bizarre behaviour in the past with my PC and SR usually sorts it out. You probably should run SR in windows safe mode for better effect.
 
[Edit to correct spelling]

So I created/activated an admin account using the info I found here:

http://maximumpcguides.com/windows-vista/logon-windows-vista-as-administrator/

No Idea if that is good info but it seemed to work.

So I logged in as admin.... then of course I had to go and change that registry key back to '0' and restart because the encryption was greyed out... logged back in as admin and it still gives me the same error message "need administrator rights" and "denied".

So are the files just F***D then?

Replacing those two libraries isn't the biggest deal.  I'm more concerned about A) how/why this happened and B) what else might be affected.  I'm not sure how to search for files that may be encrypted or corrupt when you're dealing with 2-3TB of samples/files.

...why wouldn't you always log in as admin?

The reason you don't run as Administrator all the time is because if you pick up a virus it will inherit your elevated privileges and can then bypass many system defenses to freely wreak havoc. Better to run as a user that has the minimum necessary rights, simply as another layer of malware defense. But if your computer's not on the internet (and a full-time dedicated DAW shouldn't be on any network except when needed for downloading or authorizing plugins) then you could log in as administrator all the time.
I was curious enough about your problem to google it...I found a couple of forums where people were describing identical symptoms as yours: files that unintentionally became encrypted. Unfortunately, there were no solutions or even good advice offered - in one case, a respondent flat-out told the poster that there was no way for that to happen. He'd been drinking the Microsoft Kool-Aid too long, I guess.

So it appears you're not crazy, others have also experienced this. If I were you I'd just uninstall and re-install the affected products, then disable encryption globally.

Yeh, there's an encryption certificate somewhere on your disk. I have no idea where, though. 

One of the reasons I don't encrypt files: if the disk ever crashes and you lose the certificate, then even if the files are backed up somewhere you will never be able to recover them.