Windows 7 - read-only files

I was running dualboot with vista64 and win764 on my main HDD and then I had them both pointing to a secondary HDD for all of my personal files, the problem is that I think 7 made everything on my secondary drive read-only and no matter what I do I cannot change them back so that I can edit files in vista. I had a problem with my Quickcam and a few other small issues with RC 7100 so I deleted the partition it was on and expanded the vista partion, but still cannot edit files.

Ownership & Permission Issues Buddy!!!

Check in Vista whether u have proper Ownership and Permissions to modify the file....

Yep I have admin and owner, and it does let me deselect read-only and it looks as if it change the atributes but as soon as you close and reopen they are set right back to read-only

make sure u dont have any groups or usernames in there that are a bunch of letters and numbers. if ya do it will fail to change permissions. If you give the everyone group full controll from the Windows 7 machine it might work, but is very unsecure.

I dont see any users other than me and the Windows 7 partition is gone, baby gone

That just may be another good place to use the "Take Ownership" script.

I've found it absolutely a "MUST HAVE" add-on to Vista or Win-7, since finding it on this forum.

I now install it on every Vista PC that I work on. With it, you can Take Ownership of any file or folder on your HD.

Can't find it? Well, here it is!

InstallTakeOwnership.reg - File Shared from Box.net - Free Online File Storage
* Someone complained that this was a Copyrighted file so Box.net removed it.
Sorry, I guess you'll have to find it elsewhere.


After running the script on your Vista or Win-7 PC, you can right click on any file or folder and from the drop-down context menu, you can select "Take Ownership" of that file or folder.

Taking Ownership of a folder, for instance, also gives you ownership of all the files and even sub-folders contained therein.

I wish I'd had something like that for XP.

Cheers Mates!
The Doctor

Take Ownership script FTW !

not FTW the files are still read-only

the main reason for this is that one of my games (FC2) is getting a access denied error when I try to run the benchmark tool

I am experiencing the same issue as OP. I've verified that all permissions are indeed correct. I can successfully apply changes to the Read-Only status of all files but upon completion they silently revert back to Read-Only.

I was able to fix the problem by re-Locating my personal directories i.e. documents, music, pictures....etc. to my main drive and the formatting the secondary drive and then moving the directories back