"Access denied" boot.ini

Ok, I have XP and Win 7 setup in dual boot mode, but I can't run XP because (I am pretty sure) the boot.ini file I have in Win 7 now is pointing to the wrong disk and partition for the location of XP. So I wanted to edit the boot.ini file and change the numbers so that it would point to the correct one. But when I go to save changes I keep getting "Access Denied" message. I have admin privileges, so I don't understand why it won't let me write to it. Is there a security setting I need to change so that I can edit this file?

You have to take off read-only mode in the file's properties. Reset after done.

If boot.ini needs to be edited, XP will show missing NTLDR upon bootup.

Alright, nevermind, I figured it out. I am posting this from XP

What I did was make a new boot.ini and save it somewhere else, then copy-->paste it into C:/ on Windows 7. When it went to overwrite it I had to give admin permission to do it, and it worked. The new file points to the right location and all is well.

Awesome. Glad to hear it. These can get tricky sometimes and I see you weren't having none of that! heh heh

Yeah, it looks like the way the security works in W7 is not to make it impossible to do anything, just make it difficult. I guess its fine to protect the computer from the computer-illiterate, but I wish you could turn that kind of thing off for us people that know what we're doing. Or at least those of us who think we do. I have every right to screw up my computer dang it.

That read-only is on there because malware had a habit of messing with that file. It's a security precaution.

Yeah, that's the thing, it didn't have read-only checked.