Losing rights to files and folders

[Denis156]

W7 Home Premium

I am having trouble with rights to folders and files. I notice that I am unable to get to certain files, and when I check the rights, I see that it's because "I" am not the owner. I am able to get to other files in the same folder, but some files are unavailable. I am the Owner of the folder, but that permission does not propagate to the files within the file, even after I tell it to. The only fix is to manually make myself the Owner of each affected file, one at a time.

And now I see that I cannot get into C:/Documents and Settings. There's a little lock on the icon, and if I try to open it, I'm told that "Access is Denied."

I can get into the Properties for that folder, and I have made myself the Owner, with Full Control. I still can't get in.

What gives?

Denis

[JoeP517]

With Windows 7 "Documents and Settings" is a junction point not a real folder. It is there for compatability purposes with older programs.

Joe

[Just Plain Fred]

And now I see that I cannot get into C:/Documents and Settings. There's a little lock on the icon, and if I try to open it, I'm told that "Access is Denied."

I can get into the Properties for that folder, and I have made myself the Owner, with Full Control. I still can't get in.

Denis,
Hello... Joe is correct... But there is a "workaround" you can download a "Tweak" (Winbubble) and give yourself a Right Click Context Menu "Take ownership permissions" of most "files and folders" that you want to see (free)...http://unlockforus.blogspot.com/2008/11/download.html I'm using V-1.76 on Vista and "7" with no problems. The program has many other things that you can use as well. Regards Fred

[Deadeye81]

Junction points are best left alone; tampering with them could easily lead to compromising their designed function.

[Medico]

All of what appear to be folders but have what appears to be shortcut arrows are junction points. You can only see then after changing the system folders you can view. I have 9 of these junction points in my User Name folder alone. As Gerald states these are best left alone.

[Denis156]

Thank you! Didn't know about the junction thing. That explains that, but it doesn't explain the other....

I have existing (real) folders, with files inside... I have lost the rights to some files. Making myself the owner at the folder level, and then propagating, doesn't do anything to the files. I can go to each file and grant myself rights manually. But I don't know why I'm losing rights, and why I can't fix that at a folder level. Ideas?

[bbearren]

Are these data/user folders/files, program folders/files, or system folders/files?

[bbearren]

They are only pointers, small specialized files; there's nothing inside, though it appears as a folder shortcut in Windows Explorer, and it also appears as a folder to older installation routines which want to place files there. When a files or files are sent to such a folder, the pointer sends them on to their true destination in Windows 7. They look like this:

JunctionPoints.PNG

At least mine do; yours don't point to the same places mine point to, but they serve the same function.

[axiomatica]

All of what appear to be folders but have what appears to be shortcut arrows are junction points. You can only see then after changing the system folders you can view. I have 9 of these junction points in my User Name folder alone. As Gerald states these are best left alone.

Some clarification might be useful. First, there are two different, but similar, beasts in Windows 7 (and Vista, I believe). The folders you refer to, with the shortcut arrows, are not technically junction points. They are soft links, which are similar to junction points but also different in some subtle technical ways.

Junction points have existed in Windows for a very long time and cannot be distinguished from regular folders in Windows Explorer. I believe previous posts are correct about various special folders created by the system being junction points. As stated, they are actually just "pointers" to some other regular folder.

A soft link is also a pointer to another folder, but is treated differently by Windows Explorer. First, the shortcut arrow appears on a soft link so users know that it is a link to some other folder. In other words, Windows Explorer "knows" that a soft link is a link, whereas Windows Explorer doesn't "know" that a junction point is any different from a regular folder. It is only possible to distinguish a junction point from a regular folder using relatively low-level operating system functions. Most programs will be unaware that a junction point is not just a regular folder.

This actually makes messing about with junction points very dangerous (as I have learned the hard way), because Windows Explorer acts on the "contents" of the junction point just as if it were a regular folder. So, for example, if you delete a junction point via Windows Explorer, the junction point and everything that it "contains" is deleted. The real folder that the junction point references will still be there but it will be empty. I definitely don't recommend deleting junction points that have been created by Windows, since this definitely breaks things. I once managed to delete my "Network Places" folder and had an awful time getting it recreated.

I suspect (but don't actually know) that junction points were invented by Microsoft when they started littering the file system with their damnable special folders, such as "My Documents". I imagine they needed a way to fool Windows Explorer into making these new special folders act like the real folders being referenced and hacked in junction points to solve the problem.

Soft links, on the other hand, have existed on Unix systems for ages but it is only very recently that something more or less similar has become available on Windows. I have not messed about much with soft links on Windows, but I would hope that Windows Explorer is not quite so dumb about them. At the least, when you delete one, you know that some other folder might be affected.

[ruggb]

most of the time I found that this change of ownership occurred when I reinstalled the OS. Files left over from the previous install (I do a clean install but have all my data on another drive) end up not accessable because of the ownership issue.

google and download "takeownership" file. It is a couple of .REG files (one to install, one to uninstall) and instructions - install it, it is a rt clk operation u can do on files, whole folders, or the whole drive. I never uninstall it.

Or cut and past this into a .REG file
==============

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell\runas]
@="Take Ownership"
"NoWorkingDirectory"=""

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell\runas\command]
@="cmd.exe /c takeown /f \"%1\" && icacls \"%1\" /grant administrators:F"
"IsolatedCommand"="cmd.exe /c takeown /f \"%1\" && icacls \"%1\" /grant administrators:F"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\runas]
@="Take Ownership"
"NoWorkingDirectory"=""

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\runas\command]
@="cmd.exe /c takeown /f \"%1\" /r /d y && icacls \"%1\" /grant administrators:F /t"
"IsolatedCommand"="cmd.exe /c takeown /f \"%1\" /r /d y && icacls \"%1\" /grant administrators:F /t"

================

that always fixes it for me.