System Preferences Dissapeared?

[mlkohs]

So my friend has a MacBook, OS 10.5.7,2 ghz intel core duo. All of a sudden, she said, her system preferences suddenly disappeared. It seems like it was deleted all of a sudden. There is a ? in the area it was in the dock, and searching in finder yields no results. Also, her F1-F12 keys have reverted to the old style I have on my iBook(ie F9 shows all windows etc). However if she clicks fn with the F key it does what it's supposed to do.

Anyone have any idea why this happened, or what can be done to fix it? The most irritating part of it is that all of a sudden it reads EVERYTHING that you highlight or type in

 

[BlueRevolution]

You mean it reads aloud? I'd wait for a second opinion, but my suggestion is to insert the computer's restore disk, reboot while holding the C key, and running an archive & install, enabling the option to preserve users and network settings. She shouldn't need to restore/reinstall any applications or data, but of course a backup is always a good thing to have just in case something goes awry.

 

[mlkohs]

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. I told her to back up everything incase we had to reinstall from scratch

I'll wait for a few more suggestions and then try that. Thanks!

By the way, what I mean by speaking out is in the voice that says "Excuse me program needs your attention" reads everything to her. If she clicks or highlights any application it reads it out.

 

[bewithkarthi]

Hi.

You've got two options:

You can make an Archive and Install,

You can extract it from your Tiger Install Disc using Pacifist:

http://www.charlessoft.com/

If you use Pacifist, you have to download the 10.4.9 Combo Update and run it right after replacing the missing System Preferences application. If you restart your machine before running the Combo Update, your OS can get into serious trouble.

Good Luck.

 

[BlueRevolution]

You can use Pacifist to get the System Preferences app back, but I'm wondering what else might be gone. I don't think deleting System Preferences alone would cause that much trouble - it'd just prevent you from changing your settings.

But I'm not going to test on my computer, thank you.