System preferences problem

Hi,
there is a problem with my system preferences. I am not able to change any of the settings in my dock or in appearance. I am not able to change my desktop background or screen saver, or security, date, nothing! Someone please help me out with this.

Get /Users/YourUserName/Library/Preferences/com.apple.systempreferences.plist and drag it to the Desktop.
Restart. This creates that file again, set to defaults, in the Preferences Folder.
Now try those settings. Can you change them?

I have dragged it out, I didn't get that part about 'set to defaults'. Should I reset all? How do I do that?

That happens automatically when you restart.

nuttiespice said:

Hi,
I am not able to change any of the settings in my dock or in appearance. I am not able to change my desktop background or screen saver, or security, date, nothing!

Click to expand...

toMACsh said:

Now try those settings. Can you change them?

Click to expand...

...since you've isolated the plist file, give it a go. What happens?

No answer was the stern reply! Thanks for the help guys!!

Hey! thanks for the help, lost my password for the site, it took the site a whole day to reset it et al. But I have resolved the issue. I went to my time machine backup, and replaced my current preferences with an old one, when I did not have the problem. It's working like a charm now Thanks again for your help.