Hello I thought I had solved this nightmare by re-entering the values in my SSP properties set up, however accessing the Search Settings page error has reared it ugly head again. Now all solutions point to this method listed here

* http://www.routtlogics.com/blog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=6
* http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/sharepointadmin/thread/f00651cd-e452-45b9-b19e-90e89c3c3ad4
* http://blogs.technet.com/sushrao/archive/2009/03/26/microsoft-office-sharepoint-server-2007-moss-403-forbidden-error-when-clicked-on-search-settings-page.aspx

The above workaround(s) basically states that granting the local group WSS_WPG read and write permission to the Task folder in the Windows directory would solve the problem, however whenever I try to change to the permission attribute of this folder I get an access denied message, even when logged in as a Domain administrator, Enterprise and even the SharePoint Farm administrator.

Please guys how do I get around this access denied issue.

Thanks