All files from XP read-only... seriously??

Kakuri · Jun 6, 2009

I'm dual-booting Windows 7 and Windows XP, and everything on my XP drive is read-only in Windows 7. I've searched on this issue, and read a bit, and the information I've found so far is very dis-heartening.

Do I seriously have to take ownership of all my old files? :shock: This is incredibly stupid. And what effect does this have if I boot in XP? Do I then have to tell XP to re-take ownership of everything?

I can't believe how absurd this is and really hope it doesn't make it into the final release. I've run into minor issues similar to this with XP installations, but only with user directories, and only when XP was set to protect each user's files. Every single file I try and access is read-only - this is insanity! What has XP/Win7 done with the NTFS ACL?

Dzomlija · Jun 6, 2009

Kakuri said:
I'm dual-booting Windows 7 and Windows XP, and everything on my XP drive is read-only in Windows 7. I've searched on this issue, and read a bit, and the information I've found so far is very dis-heartening.

Do I seriously have to take ownership of all my old files? :shock: This is incredibly stupid. And what effect does this have if I boot in XP? Do I then have to tell XP to re-take ownership of everything?

I can't believe how absurd this is and really hope it doesn't make it into the final release. I've run into minor issues similar to this with XP installations, but only with user directories, and only when XP was set to protect each user's files. Every single file I try and access is read-only - this is insanity! What has XP/Win7 done with the NTFS ACL?

You won't necessarily have to take ownership, although that remains the best way of doing things.

What you can do is boot into Windows 7, edit the security of the specific folders you want to access, and add your Windows 7 username with Full Access credentials. Make sure that those Full Access credentials are correctly propagated to files and subfolders.

Now, when you boot into XP, it should show up as an "Unknown User", but you should have access to those files anyway from within Windows 7.

Still, it's the better option to rather take ownership and dump XP altogether. If you really must still use XP, have you looked into Windows XP Mode yet?

Kakuri · Jun 6, 2009

Thanks for the info! My system has the same name in Win7 & XP, and I have the same username in both... I guess it uses an internally generated ID for ACL management.

Unfortunately, the specific folders I want to access are everything on a 500Gb drive - I don't understand why they would do this!

I'm trying to re-create my daily work environment in Win7, and while I use VirtualBox and may consider Win7's XP-mode VM, I'd generally like to just boot into my already working and configured XP environment when I'm having problems getting my work done in Win7.

It really seems like Win7's ACL management might still have some glitches - I verified that I am in my Administrators group, yet when I try and access files in a folder that grants full permissions to the Adminstrators group Win7 tells me they're read-only.

And of course there's the problem that the file attributes are actually set to read-only, and un-checking read-only has no effect.

Dzomlija · Jun 6, 2009

Kakuri said:
Thanks for the info! My system has the same name in Win7 & XP, and I have the same username in both... I guess it uses an internally generated ID for ACL management.

Unfortunately, the specific folders I want to access are everything on a 500Gb drive - I don't understand why they would do this!

I'm trying to re-create my daily work environment in Win7, and while I use VirtualBox and may consider Win7's XP-mode VM, I'd generally like to just boot into my already working and configured XP environment when I'm having problems getting my work done in Win7.

It really seems like Win7's ACL management might still have some glitches - I verified that I am in my Administrators group, yet when I try and access files in a folder that grants full permissions to the Adminstrators group Win7 tells me they're read-only.

And of course there's the problem that the file attributes are actually set to read-only, and un-checking read-only has no effect.

Actually, you are half right.

It's not that Windows 7 has buggy ACL code, it's one of the features of the NTFS file system. The only possible way that I can think of to no longer require the need to change ownership or security permissions would be to convert the NTFS filesystems for both XP and 7 to FAT32.

Trouble is, the build-in "convert" utility in XP and 7 can convert only from FAT32 to NTFS - not vice versa, so you'll need a third party utility to so. Another drawback to FAT32 is the larger the volume on which it is used, the more space is wasted. It's not really very effective to use on anything larger than maybe 40 or 80 GB drives, and not to mention that it's far more prone to damage than is NTFS.

Have you tried yet (from within Windows 7) to add your user name (with full access permissions) to the root folder of the XP drive?

Code:

C:\Documents and Settings\user>convert /?
Converts FAT volumes to NTFS.
CONVERT volume /FS:NTFS [/V] [/CvtArea:filename] [/NoSecurity] [/X]
  volume      Specifies the drive letter (followed by a colon),
              mount point, or volume name.
  /FS:NTFS    Specifies that the volume is to be converted to NTFS.
  /V          Specifies that Convert should be run in verbose mode.
  /CvtArea:filename
              Specifies a contiguous file in the root directory to be
              the place holder for NTFS system files.
  /NoSecurity Specifies the converted files and directories security
              settings to be accessible by everyone.
  /X          Forces the volume to dismount first if necessary.
              All opened handles to the volume would then be invalid.
C:\Documents and Settings\user>exit

Kakuri · Jun 6, 2009

Solution

SOLUTION TO ALL FILES ON OLD XP DRIVE READ-ONLY

In Windows 7, Right-click on the drive and click Properties
On the Security tab, click Edit
Click the Add button and enter your username (I entered it in the format "<ComputerName>\<UserName>")
Check the "Allow Full Control" box and click OK.
Wait for it to finish.... enjoy!

This may seem like a "DUH" solution, but it didn't occur to me to try it because I am already in the Administrators group, and the Administrators group is already listed with "Allow Full Control." I guess this is a bug which will hopefully be fixed before release.

Thank you for the suggestion, Peter!

Barman58 · Jun 6, 2009

Just to clarify this is not a bug in windows but a result of the dual rights system in use by default.

Although you are a member of the administrators group you are running as a standard user unless your rights are elevated. you can manually elevate rights by right clicking and selecting run as administrator, certain programs will auto elevate and produce the UAC prompt (if enabled), explorer is not one of these

If you wish to have full administrator rights in windows explorer run explorer.exe with run as administrator

In effect what you are doing when you add your user name to the file access rights is adding the non elevated standard user, thus providing access in explorer.

Topaz · Jun 26, 2009

Kakuri said:
In Windows 7, Right-click on the drive and click Properties

On the Security tab, click Edit

Click the Add button and enter your username (I entered it in the format "<ComputerName>\<UserName>")

Check the "Allow Full Control" box and click OK.

Wait for it to finish.... enjoy!

This did not work for me?!?!?! I can't edit the tags of any of my .mp3 files and it's quite annoying.

JustinHit · Jul 31, 2009

It is a bug when you can't do it even after using every suggestion on this thread.

Mahroch · Aug 8, 2009

hi, i tried to do it all possible ways - tried to change the permitions on actual folder (still read-only), I changed security->FUll control for users on the folder (still R-O), I added me as an user (eventhough I'm administrator) and allowed full control and still it is R-O.

any advice from anyone who was succesfull on this ?

Maros

Mahroch · Aug 8, 2009

OK, here is the thing (BUG?):

if you apply security permitions on folder that includes any files, the folder will get the permitions, but not the files inside - eventhough win writes, that it will be applied on Folders, subfolders and Files. Bull**** ... if you look at the permitions of any file inside the folder, you will se there are only 2 permitions set. If you change it on this file, then everything works perfect.

The problem is that you cannot select several files and apply the security permitions on this bunch

well, well ...

maros

SquonkSC · Aug 8, 2009

Easier solution - read all pls.

Mahroch said:
OK, here is the thing (BUG?):

if you apply security permitions on folder that includes any files, the folder will get the permitions, but not the files inside - eventhough win writes, that it will be applied on Folders, subfolders and Files. Bull**** ... if you look at the permitions of any file inside the folder, you will se there are only 2 permitions set. If you change it on this file, then everything works perfect.

The problem is that you cannot select several files and apply the security permitions on this bunch

well, well ...

maros

To everyone that has this problem. It is not a bug.
The folders were created with an username on the XP install.

Ofcourse Win7 or any newly installed OS including XP, won't know that user because it was made in a previous install.

So in the new os the old user shows up as: S-76254-2346436-234634... or something similar.
It means user unknown.
To get full access to the folders and files you need to add a user that is created on the new OS.

Best practice is to use your username. You must also give it 'full permissions"

Usually you are not allowed to add users to a folder without first taking ownership. That is the only reason why you would need to take ownership in the first place.

NTFS security is not a simple matter. One needs to do some reading on it to understand it.
In the turorial section of this forum you can find a tutorial on setting permissions.
But you need to do the reading yourself.

However. There is an easier way.

To understand this I have to explain something.

1. When a folder with certain security settings is copied, the settings will be lost.
The copied folder will adopt the settings of the "parent" folder, or easier said, the folder you are copying it to.

2. When a folder is moved, the settings will remain as they were.

This is why sometimes you can enter the parent folder, but not the child.
The child has been moved from another location and maintained it's own settings.

How can this be helpful to you?

Create a new folder that resembles the "parent" folder that's giving you problems.

for example when the folder is called "My files" make the new one "My files2"

Check the security settings of that new folder.
If your username is not there, add it, and give it full permissions.

Now copy (NOT MOVE) the files from the exmpl. "My files" folder to the "my files2" folder.

All the folders will now adopt the security settings of the parent folder you created.
If you did them right, you should be ok.

Check if everything is working and then delete the old "my files" folder and rename the "my files2" folder to "my files". (examples names of course.)

good luck

edit: warning:
before doing this, make sure you have enough room on your disk for all the folders.
If you have little room , you need to copy only a few folders at a time and delete the folders that were done successfully. Then copy the next and so forth.

ernietamminga · Aug 23, 2010

Hair-pulling time, because none of these suggestions works.
I have admin privileges, and I own the folders I'm trying to work with.
I can uncheck Read Only and apply that to the folder and its subfolders, etc.
The checkmark goes away until I reopen that same folder... then it's read only again.
What a huge mess and waste of time this is causing us, because we can't work with the hundreds of files we need to be able to work with!

logicearth · Aug 23, 2010

ernietamminga said:
Hair-pulling time, because none of these suggestions works.
I have admin privileges, and I own the folders I'm trying to work with.
I can uncheck Read Only and apply that to the folder and its subfolders, etc.
The checkmark goes away until I reopen that same folder... then it's read only again.
What a huge mess and waste of time this is causing us, because we can't work with the hundreds of files we need to be able to work with!

Readonly does not apply to folders. The checkbox always has a block in it when viewing folder properties. You need to set the permissions in the security tab.

All files from XP read-only... seriously??

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