How to remove lock icon from folders?

Celeras · Aug 8, 2009

I was messing around with WMP12, and ended up accidentally sharing all of my libraries. Oops! I unshared them all, however ever since that happened all of the folders now have the 'lock' icon over them. The only way I can seem to get rid of them, is to reshare.. which I don't want to do.

Anyone know how to remedy this? It's been bugging me

Celeras · Aug 10, 2009

Everything under the sun documented by now, except this!

SquonkSC · Aug 10, 2009

Celeras said:
Everything under the sun documented by now, except this!

Don't worry about the locks. It only means users with lower rights than admin can't edit them.

If you want to get rid of them, search for locks in this forum.
I know it's there, because I wrote a few posts about it.

good luck

johngalt · Aug 10, 2009

@OP:

Actually, you're mistaken.

You'll need to take ownership of those folders again - when you shared them that OS took control of the folders so it could handle the sharing and such - but when you unshared, it did not revert the ownership and control over the folder s back to you.

Check our tutorials on taking ownership.

Tews · Aug 10, 2009

Simple really ... go to the tutorial section and read Brinks tut on taking ownership and you'll be good to go...

That was easy wasn't it??

Tews · Aug 10, 2009

johngalt said:
@OP:

Actually, you're mistaken.

You'll need to take ownership of those folders again - when you shared them that OS took control of the folders so it could handle the sharing and such - but when you unshared, it did not revert the ownership and control over the folder s back to you.

Check our tutorials on taking ownership.

LOL .. great minds DO think alike don't they John?? :roflmao:

johngalt · Aug 10, 2009

Yup - but I imitate a great mind often, so....

SquonkSC · Aug 10, 2009

johngalt said:
@OP:

Actually, you're mistaken.

You'll need to take ownership of those folders again - when you shared them that OS took control of the folders so it could handle the sharing and such - but when you unshared, it did not revert the ownership and control over the folder s back to you.

Check our tutorials on taking ownership.

Sorry to contradict you.

Locks have nothing to do with ownership.

I have ownership of documents and settings and my useraccount is set to it with full permissions.
Yet I have a lock on it

I have never shared it.
What I did is rip out all user accounts except mine. Not even administrators.

When I doubleclick I enter and see this

As far as I know you get these locks when you delete the everyone user from the security tab.

Greetz

SquonkSC · Aug 10, 2009

I reproduced it.

I created a folder.

by default my username and everyone were in the security tab

I took ownership, disabled the distribute permissions to subcontainers, and deleted the everyone.

Now it has a lock and only my username in security. I can still enter the folder and share it.

In my oppinion the lock says, users without admin rights can't enter.

johngalt · Aug 10, 2009

And I hate to contradict *you* - but I haven't done that and I too have a lock on the Doc an Settings folder - b/v that is not a real folder it is a virtual folder established for compatibility with older programs designed for XP, thus it allows the system to redirect the application to where it needs to go to.

In point of fact, if you check the ownership, even if you take ownership and add your permissions, they are over ridden b/c the System ownership has special permissions which you are not in effect changing , and the virtual folder and its tree are inheriting from that first and foremost.

Remember, I have not done anything like you are describing regarding having ripped out all other users - every thing in this install is as it was when I finished installing 2 days ago.

johngalt · Aug 10, 2009

Whereas I removed the lock from a file that had permissions to a user that no longer existed even though everyone was still a part of the permission family.

it is obvious that there is more to it tan either just everyone or just the logged in user name - but in his case that is more than likely what will need to be done.

SquonkSC · Aug 10, 2009

johngalt said:
And I hate to contradict *you* - but I haven't done that and I too have a lock on the Doc an Settings folder - b/v that is not a real folder it is a virtual folder established for compatibility with older programs designed for XP, thus it allows the system to redirect the application to where it needs to go to.

In point of fact, if you check the ownership, even if you take ownership and add your permissions, they are over ridden b/c the System ownership has special permissions which you are not in effect changing , and the virtual folder and its tree are inheriting from that first and foremost.

View attachment 22508

Remember, I have not done anything like you are describing regarding having ripped out all other users - every thing in this install is as it was when I finished installing 2 days ago.

But do any of those folder have the "everyone" user in the security?

I know about docs and sets being virtual.
that's why I posted the thing I did on my D drive.

I could easily reproduce it.
when the everyone user is absent it gets a lock.

Please see if on your system there is any folder with lock and with everyone.

I am curious now, there might be more reasons variables when this occurs.

Greetz.

johngalt · Aug 10, 2009

*the entire drive and every folder had everyone in it.

basically, I had taken ownership and added my username to the drive and all subcontainers 3 times after, in Feb, I had issues exactly as the OP described, after enabling, then disabling, homegroup folder sharing. Ever since then, every fresh install has forced me to take ownership of the entire dirve (the first time I did it folder by folder b/c I was worried about changing the permissions on restricted folders like Recycler and such) - and every time, even now, there is an everyone in there.

In fact, I just removed everyone from D and have no locks:

SquonkSC · Aug 10, 2009

johngalt said:
*the entire drive and every folder had everyone in it.

basically, I had taken ownership and added my username to the drive and all subcontainers 3 times after, in Feb, I had issues exactly as the OP described, after enabling, then disabling, homegroup folder sharing. Ever since then, every fresh install has forced me to take ownership of the entire dirve (the first time I did it folder by folder b/c I was worried about changing the permissions on restricted folders like Recycler and such) - and every time, even now, there is an everyone in there.

In fact, I just removed everyone from D and have no locks:

View attachment 22509

View attachment 22510

View attachment 22511

Interesting.

I have just unshared some folders. No locks
Reshared them without problems.

I hate these kind of unexpected outcomes.

This calls for extensive investigation.

Will make it my mission for this week.

At least we both have proven that it can occur under different/several circumstances.

This will be another case of being both right and both wrong.

get back to you on this.

Now it's bed time

greetz and see you later.

johngalt · Aug 10, 2009

Indeed - that is what I was beginning to suspect. I knew something was not right as this has happened to me before, and every single time I reinstall this OS my D drive gets the lock on most (but not all) of the folders there.

it is late here as well - I will be taking the GRE in just over 12 hours - so I am definitely not going to be able to investigate this for at least 24 hours....

fseal · Aug 11, 2009

The lock icon is annoying. It's sure to become a hot "Windows 7 sucks" topic because it is so inscrutable and so difficult to figure out how to remove.

I successfully removed the lock icon previsouly but tonight I can;t do it again. [Edit ] See Below...

It does have somethign to do with user permissions, but taking ownership isn't it. The method I used had something to do with resharing with everyone using the REAL share dialogs, then closing the explorer window and unsharing with everyeone and the lock dissapeared. (Not closing the window causes a "one user is connected to the share" warnings)

Alas, I can;t get rid of the lock now myself

Added to the annoyance is that the lock icon itself largely doesn;t seem necessary or is over informative and yet they removed the share icon overlay which was VERY imformative

[EDIT]

Ok, the hack way to get rid of the icon:
1) Right click offending folder, go to properties, Sharing, Share,
2) Select "Everyone" in the drop list, click Add, then in the permission level drop list set to Read/Write.
3) Click Share, then done.
4) Click Advanced Sharing.
5) Uncheck "Share this folder" then OK and CLose.

Simple eh?
GRRRR!

I don;t know if this is a common way of getting into this mess but I have "Home Sharing" turned off. I have a small Workgroup all set up and didn't want to reset everything else. Unfortuantely even with homegroups off, the "Sharing" context menus are for homegroup sharing.

and using the "Share with nobody" to turn off sharing that you applied elsewise seems to be the way I get into this situation.

From now on, sharing and unsharing in a workgroup situation apparently all need to be done from the properties menu only (Sure wish those homegroup sharing context menus would dissapear when you turn off homegroups, or better yet, revert to the workgroup sharing like they used to be)

Celeras · Aug 11, 2009

fseal said:
[EDIT]

Ok, the hack way to get rid of the icon:
1) Right click offending folder, go to properties, Sharing, Share,
2) Select "Everyone" in the drop list, click Add, then in the permission level drop list set to Read/Write.
3) Click Share, then done.
4) Click Advanced Sharing.
5) Uncheck "Share this folder" then OK and CLose.

Simple eh?
GRRRR!

I don;t know if this is a common way of getting into this mess but I have "Home Sharing" turned off. I have a small Workgroup all set up and didn't want to reset everything else. Unfortuantely even with homegroups off, the "Sharing" context menus are for homegroup sharing. and using the "Share with nobody" to turn off sharing that you applied elsewise seems to be the way I get into this situation.

From now on, sharing and unsharing in a workgroup situation apparently all need to be done from the properties menu only (Sure wish those homegroup sharing context menus would dissapear when you turn off homegroups, or better yet, revert to the workgroup sharing like they used to be)

Worked for me, thank you

I must have removed that "Everyone" permission while attempting to unshare the libraries I accidentally shared, quite smooth on my behalf

Here's what I don't understand though. Other folders that I've never attempted to share DONT have the 'everyone' permission listed for them. Why don't they have locks, but the folders I tryed to once share without it do?

SquonkSC · Aug 11, 2009

fseal said:
The lock icon is annoying. It's sure to become a hot "Windows 7 sucks" topic because it is so inscrutable and so difficult to figure out how to remove.

I successfully removed the lock icon previsouly but tonight I can;t do it again. [Edit ] See Below...

It does have somethign to do with user permissions, but taking ownership isn't it. The method I used had something to do with resharing with everyone using the REAL share dialogs, then closing the explorer window and unsharing with everyeone and the lock dissapeared. (Not closing the window causes a "one user is connected to the share" warnings)

Alas, I can;t get rid of the lock now myself

Added to the annoyance is that the lock icon itself largely doesn;t seem necessary or is over informative and yet they removed the share icon overlay which was VERY imformative

[EDIT]

Ok, the hack way to get rid of the icon:
1) Right click offending folder, go to properties, Sharing, Share,
2) Select "Everyone" in the drop list, click Add, then in the permission level drop list set to Read/Write.
3) Click Share, then done.
4) Click Advanced Sharing.
5) Uncheck "Share this folder" then OK and CLose.

Simple eh?
GRRRR!

I don;t know if this is a common way of getting into this mess but I have "Home Sharing" turned off. I have a small Workgroup all set up and didn't want to reset everything else. Unfortuantely even with homegroups off, the "Sharing" context menus are for homegroup sharing. and using the "Share with nobody" to turn off sharing that you applied elsewise seems to be the way I get into this situation.

From now on, sharing and unsharing in a workgroup situation apparently all need to be done from the properties menu only (Sure wish those homegroup sharing context menus would dissapear when you turn off homegroups, or better yet, revert to the workgroup sharing like they used to be)

The lock appears under different circumstances and for different reasons.

A few posts back you can read what I did on my D: drive.
Never even made a share let alone undo it.
So my lock has not been invoked by anything to do with sharing.

But thanks for elaborating on what you did. It will add to my investigation.
The lock is there to tell us something, but it can be for different reasons.

I was able to reproduce your method and had the same result, a popup telling me that someone was still using the share.
Simple and advanced sharing seem to conflict.

I have this weird feeling MS screwed up on this one.
Well for me at least they did when they took the shared symbol away.

Now I have to physically click the folders to see whether they are shared or not.
That one really sux.

But hey, I remember XP before SP1, so I guess these are just minor screwups.

Will report when I now more.

Greetz

nate42nd · Nov 3, 2009

Has anyone come to a conclusion on this? I have some folders that were shared, then I stopped sharing them and they have locks. What exactly (and easily) do I need to do? They are driving me nuts and every time I mess with advanced sharing I end up doing more harm than good....

Edit: i found this and added "Authenticated Users" gave it full control and it worked fine.

1. Right click on the folder, choose Properties.
2. On Security tab, click Edit --- Add, input "Everyone" or "Authenticated Users" to the list. Give it Full Control permission and click OK.

SquonkSC · Nov 3, 2009

nate42nd said:
Has anyone come to a conclusion on this? I have some folders that were shared, then I stopped sharing them and they have locks. What exactly (and easily) do I need to do? They are driving me nuts and every time I mess with advanced sharing I end up doing more harm than good....

Edit: i found this and added "Authenticated Users" gave it full control and it worked fine.

1. Right click on the folder, choose Properties.
2. On Security tab, click Edit --- Add, input "Everyone" or "Authenticated Users" to the list. Give it Full Control permission and click OK.

just one thing. Don't give auth users full control, it's not good security practice.

With read and write only, the lock is gone too, so full perms isn't even necessary.

Greetings.

How to remove lock icon from folders?

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