Windows 7 File Permissions are too hard for me to figure out.

The transition from XP to Windows 7 seemed pleasant, until I realized that I can no longer copy files from my own machine into a network folder which I have full rights to.

Pretty please, help me solve this. It is unique in that I've already taken ownership of the file, yet the error persists. When copying a file 'install_flash_player.exe' from my desktop to a remote share \\server\folder$\subfolder I get a message to the tune of:
(Taken from Google Images)

So then I run the damn calcs program, here's my output:


As you can see, my current account ps-admin is marked F, or granted full control of this folder. Further, I went out of my way to take control of the file install_flash_player.exe and I am the owner.

Please, I beg of you, guide me to making these permissions work right. I am the administrator at our office and not able to copy my own files to my own server's network share that I created? Not acceptable.

Have you taken ownership of the ServicePack1 folder?

Thanks for the suggestion FliGi7. I just tried that and the copy also fails. Also, I do not want to be taking control of folders stored elsewhere on the network. I don't even want to go out of my way taking control of files on my own machine.

Sometimes I feel like somebody with a humongous mallet needs to bang Microsoft on the head for them to recognize that they're producing shitty solutions to simple problems.

I know this post is not helpful but I wanted to say I agree with you epheterson. When downloading any file in windows 7 premium or enterprise - being a system admin- You cannot even save the file to a folder other than in your profile path- my documents. How lame is that?

I have yet to find a fix for that- but it is very annoying.

The best part about it is through all these hellish security policies, Microsoft is still an open door to hackers, essentially.

It's like the TSA not finding guns on people although they have a naked picture of their body. (True!)

What OS is the network share?

Good question! I forgot to include this, but I'm connecting to Windows Server 2003.

Looks like the answer might be located in the group policy editor...

Windows 7 can't access Share in a workgroup

See if that might address the problem.

Redacted...

FliGi7, thank you for finding that. After reading through, I tried both solutions. I set my group policy for our office to that described in the post, ran gpupdate, logged off and on, validated that the settings propagated, then tried the copy again. Same error message. The second solution was to ensure the clocks are synchronized, they are within a second of each other and the copy fails still.

fseal, that is a very heated post and it would appear you assume I don't understand my job. We do not have any shares available to 'Everyone' and by "I have full rights" I mean my specific domain administrator account, which I use to login to my machine, has full control of the folder on our server. Previously, full control was simply enabled for my administrator group, but since this error, during troubleshooting, I've tried adding my account explicitly.

I welcome more suggestions, please! As an administrator, I need the ability to write to any share.

P.S. I just now discovered that specifically .exe and .dll files are failing while images and text is able to copy. This extends to my ability to rename a .exe file in that share. (ie. I can rename an .exe to .exe_ and copy it, but then not rename it back to .exe) Not exactly sure how to fix this problem.

Sorry, we get dozens and dozens of people here that complain about permissions and "demand" full control of their machines (not realizing they have it if they would just stop pounding the KB) while also complaining about MS insecurity, and demading that MS make everything completely open and easy and yet compeltely secure. It's a complete incongruence and I guess I'm getting a little overly tired of it

I apologize but your ranting gave off those vibes pretty strong and I mistakenly lumped you lumped you into that category and replied in kind...

I think fseal's statement was a good one that should just be taken at face value with no inference of incompetency. They are valid points about running and working with a server and always good to keep in mind. It will serve good purpose for others coming across this thread that may not be as competent as the OP.

fseal said:

I apologize but your ranting gave off those vibes pretty strong and I mistakenly lumped you lumped you into that category and replied in kind...

Click to expand...

I'm a slightly different category who demands intuitive solutions. More so, I'd like to see the settings work as expected when I truthfully feel I've researched and applied them all correctly. You must sympathize with this one.


So do we have any more things I might try, realizing now only .exe and .dll files are affected?

Is the actual path \\server\d$\dataFolder? Some sub folder on an administrative share. it's not a folder within the Windows or Program Files directory, is it?

With file permissions it's
1). NTFS: if you are in 2 groups, it's the most restrictive group
2). Sharing Permissions: if you are listed twice, or in 2 groups, it's whichever is more retrictive
3). And if NTFS and Share Permissions are different, the most restrictive one wins.

In this case, I don't think it's an issue of the above since txt files and such can be copied. It seems that it's protected files which cannot be copied.

Is the "Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Configuration" option enabled on the 2003 server, in Add/Remove Programs, Windows Components? I've had many strange things with that in the past, and almost always disable it immediately on a new build.

I see what you're saying about whichever is more restrictive wins. So I can't have an ALLUSERS group and an ADMINS group both listed, where the admin also exists in the ALLUSERS group?

Uninstalling Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Configuration did nothing (pre-reboot).

It says you need permission from the destination file.

So take ownership or fully permission yourself.

jpdepucci11 said:

I know this post is not helpful but I wanted to say I agree with you epheterson. When downloading any file in windows 7 premium or enterprise - being a system admin- You cannot even save the file to a folder other than in your profile path- my documents. How lame is that?

I have yet to find a fix for that- but it is very annoying.

Click to expand...

Absolutely untrue. You can save a file anywhere you like other than the root of the C: drive.

I have no difficulty saving to c:\ either!!

One thing that quickly becomes clear to many, but often only after some pretty hard lessons, is that the whole "permissions thing", works perfectly well for most people as long as they don't play around with it, or as fseal pointed out, try to gain access to "everything" by manipulating various permissions. Doing this often renders your system either unstable or inoperable.

Setting up various rights and permissions can be quite complex, and it is easy to make mistakes. Some things are not intuitive at all, you have to know exactly how to do it. "Guessing" that something will work because you think it ought to, based on its name, or something like that, is a very bad idea.

There have been plenty of other systems with similar complexity. The various Novell systems for instance. You had to really spend a lot of time learning how things worked before trying to implement them on a live system or you would just end up either locking people out or crashing the system.

Obviously, people moving to Windows 7 from XP do have some problems with how things work. It takes a little while to settle down and gain confidence in the system. The "playing around with things" phase will slowly taper off, and you will then have fewer problems, or none at all.

It is important to realise that various default settings are there for very good reasons! If you change them, then you have to know what they do and why they do it, if you don't know this, then you ARE going to have problems. That's just how it is...........

Regards....Mike Connor