Windows 7: File locations and zip.

Hi Guys and Gals !

I'll toss out some red meat for the Guru's.

Over the years I have owned many computers dating back to the beginning of IBM's introduction of the desk top. I evolved with all of the progress however my 13 year old grandson is probably more computer literate than I am ! Never the less my current question pertains to zipped files.

I installed Quicken to keep track of my personal finances. Two computers later the files appear to be scattered all over. My initial computer was an HP slimline with a pocket media external hard drive which plugged into the front. I used it to back up daily financial entries.

Subsequently I installed Windows 7 and immediately encountered problems. The files were saved on the pocket media hard drive.

A couple of weeks ago I bought a new HP and connected the pocket media hard drive. A search of it reveals files in numerous places. Quite a mystery since I always used the same Quicken backup, feature for 2 or 3 years.

The pocket media capacity says I have 25 GB of free space on a 74.5 GB device. That's quite a mystery since I previously had much, much more free space. I have found Quicken files scattered all over the place. Some files, the bulk, are apparently zipped particularly 2009. When I try to open them I receive a message, access denies. This is on the new computer.

I'm asking how do I open these zipped files. Numerous attempts, help instructions and books haven't yet provided me with a solution.

Bill Tibbe

I would not know why your files were scattered in different locations on your hard drive, but I do know why you can't open them.

Since the drive was previously used on a different computer they are not owned by any real user, i.e. not by you if you are the only one using the machine. So, if you check the owner of the files, you will see a long string of numbers. The Windows on the old computer would interpret this string of numbers and show your old username, but the new Windows is unaware of that. So, to open the files you have to take ownership.

To do that, right-click on the files, go to properties, then security tab, then advanced, then owner tab. There you change the owner to yourself. You can do that with whole directories, but then check the box to propagate permissions to child objects. Once owner - and you'll have to close and reopen the properties - then go back to advanced, add yourself as a user and assign full permissions to yourself. Then you'll have full access to the files.

Hope this helps.

Download WinDirStat and get your files organized WinDirStat - Windows Directory Statistics

Thanks fellow users:

I finally succeeded. Here's some background:

I was previously using an HP Slimline desk top with Vista.

I had been keeping financial data on Quick books for a number of years. 3 or 4 years ago I decided to begin using Quicken for personal use, to pay bills, balance check books and other. I had Norton security but it eventually became so slow, culling through all files on boot up, that I became annoyed and deleted it.

It appears that I began using Windows One Care in about September 2007 and used it's backup for my files. HP Slim line has a neat Pocket Media hard drive that plugs into the front of the computer. That's where I kept my backup. In about November, or so, 2009 Microsoft/Windows apparently discontinued One Care according to what I have read. At the end of December 2009 I installed Windows - 7 upgrade Home Premium 32 bit. Immediately on start-up I had problems with an interloper bandit that installed the Dealio tool bar. Not being able to resolve it, in a timely fashion, I bought a new HP desk top Pavilion with Windows - 7 64 bit factory installed. And plugged the Pocket media external hard drive on it. Updated my Quicken files for 2010 and began using backup.

So it seems that the scattered files are due to using two different computers and 3 or 4 different backup systems and procedures. What I eventually got was some files I could open, some zipped and some that were read only by the previous computer owner. Some files that I could not open. The files were stashed around in different locations and with different conditions/ protection on different dates. I always used the same Quicken "backup" feature but the variety of computers and internal backup procedures were changing hidden from my view. There are "files" and "catalogs" which seem to be duplicates of the files from September 2007 to December 2009. No wonder I couldn't find many files and no wonder my hard drive got so loaded up with hundreds of thousands of MB.

Now as to gaining access to the zipped and protected files, I plundered around in Windows -7 and finally after a few hours became fairly familiar with the features of unzip and change owner. Through a combination of reading the book Windows 7 Inside Out, Windows help, advice on this forum, and Quicken help, I finally was able to unzip the files, open them and read them. It was not easy or simple and no one component did everything. It took a lot of concerted effort from various sources.

The files are actually old, obsolete financial data that is history, not useful any more so I will delete them. But that will free up a lot of space on my external hard drive.

Again thanks for the help. It was accurate, useful, beneficial and certainly saved me a lot of time. Much appreciated.

Subsequently I deleted the old 2007, 2008, 2009 files successfully. But first made CD copies just in case.

Then I opened Quicken and my current financial data was there intact on the C drive *( hard drive and also the Pocket Media external drive. ).

The deletion of old, obelete files freed up - 44.3 GB of free space on a 76.4 GB hard drive