Help with ownership and permissions

Hi, Are they any tutorials or information about how these work (as opposed to how to set or alter them). Thanks.

Ztruker said:

This is a pretty good article: How to Understand Those Confusing Windows 7 File/Share Permissions - How-To Geek

Thanks, that was the clearest I've read so far. It still doesn't explain some of the behaviour I'm getting. Can you recommend any article that clarifies ownership. Windows help says "The owner controls how permissions are set on the object and to whom permissions are granted." Why when I'm running under a admin account, do I get pop ups sometimes saying "I don't have permission to view files, click here to get perminant permission." Is this an ownership issue? Is this a UAC "feature." I notice after I've clicked this, my username is added to the permissions list.

Ztruker said:

Many files and folders on a Windows computer are owned by System, not the Administrator group, which is where your administrator level account is anchored. Many times, adding the Administrator group to have Full permission is sufficient to allow you access. Some time you need to take ownership though I have never been able to figure out why.

Maybe one of the other folks here can clarify that.

Thanks. It would be nice to figure out why though, rather than just accept it as some windows mystery

logicearth said:

What files/folders are you trying to access? Many in Windows will deny you access because they are for compatibility with old software. See links below.

Nothing complicated. If logged on as BillAdm (my admin acct) and try and use notepad to change the txt file (see attached shots for permission and ownership and 'effective' permissions), I cannot save any changes - getting access denied. To delete it, I must confirm in UAC my admin rights. To restore from recycle bin I must confirm again my admin rights. On .doc files (with same permissions), word only opens them up in read-only mode. I can't even save copies.

According to the effective permissions I should have full control.

If I do the same logged on as Bill (my user acct), I have control.
I note that Bill is explicitly listed in the permissions.

Any insights? Thanks.

logicearth said:

Unless you run notepad as Administrator (right-click > Run as Administrator) it will run under the context of the "Users" group. According to your permissions those of the "Users" group only have read permissions no write. You would either need to add an entry for BillAdm into the list of permissions or run notepad as administrator.

The reason for this is protection, even under and Administrator account everything runs under the context of being a standard user. Only when elevated with Run as Administrator will an application get the full power. This helps negate security issues with running applications as full power all the time.

Thanks. So is there any reason to ever login under my admin account? If I also use my user acct, and need to elevate I can always use my admin name and password at that point.