Run As Administrator - Lost Rights?

Great to hear, ARD.

I realised that I made a mistake with the Icacls grant commands in post 27. Instead of ‘(OI)(CI)’, which means “apply this permission to sub files and folders”, I did ‘(IO)(CI)’, which means “apply this permission to subfolders only, but not the object itself”. I’m surprised it still worked. This actually turns out to be a good thing because we now know that Photoshop had been crashing over access to some folder rather than some file, which honestly is not what I would have anticipated, but there you go.

It seems we must be hunting a folder down.

One method for determining which folder was causing Photoshop to crash would be to play the game of elimination on the folders’ permissions.

Here’s how it’s going to work. For each folder, there will be an Icacls command. Each Icacls command will either be removing permissions on a folder or it will be applying permissions to it. After running the pool of Icacls commands, launch Photoshop and take note of whether it fails. Depending on the case, Icacls commands will be removed from the pool accordingly.

The following are examples of what I mean by a Icacls command that applies or removes permissions, in respective order.

Code:

icacls "filename" /grant "%username%”:(IO)(CI)F
icacls "filename" /remove "%username%"

The part in red is the part you will switch out for for each Icacls command.

Use the following as a template. Such as the most efficient way to correctly guess a chosen random number between 1 and 100, I suggest going halves each time. I’ve started for you, the first half are set to apply permissions (for simplicity, lets’ call them ‘on’) and the rest are set to remove the permissions (call them ‘off’).

Code:

icacls "C:\Program Files\Adobe" /grant "%username%":(IO)(CI)F
icacls "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe" /grant "%username%":(IO)(CI)F
icacls "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Macrovision Shared" /grant "%username%":(IO)(CI)F
icacls "C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe" /grant "%username%":(IO)(CI)F
icacls "C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Adobe" /grant "%username%":(IO)(CI)F
icacls "C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Macrovision Shared" /grant "%username%":(IO)(CI)F
icacls "C:\ProgramData\Adobe" /remove "%username%"
icacls "C:\ProgramData\FLEXnet" /remove "%username%"
icacls "C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Roaming\Adobe" /remove "%username%"
icacls "C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Adobe" /remove "%username%"
icacls "C:\Users\%username%\AppData\LocalLow\Adobe" /remove "%username%"
icacls "C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe /remove "%username%"

The Elimination Method

1. Run the pool of Icacls commands.
2. Try Photoshop and record observation, i.e., does it crash?
3. Do Case 1 or 2 depending on whether or not the application crashed in step 2.
   
   Case 1 — it crashes:
   If crash, eliminate the Icacls commands that are on in the pool (no need to remove permissions from these folders before doing this). For the remaining off commands, let half be on. This will be the new pool of Icacls commands to work with.
   
   E.g., the new pool (as by the beginning template) will be,
   
   Code:

   icacls "C:\ProgramData\Adobe" /grant "%username%":(IO)(CI)F
   icacls "C:\ProgramData\FLEXnet" /grant "%username%":(IO)(CI)F
   icacls "C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Roaming\Adobe" /grant "%username%":(IO)(CI)F
   icacls "C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Adobe" /remove "%username%"
   icacls "C:\Users\%username%\AppData\LocalLow\Adobe" /remove "%username%"
   icacls "C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe /remove "%username%"

   Case 2 — no crash:
   If Photoshop starts successfully, eliminate the Icacls commands that are off in the pool. For the remaining commands, make half be off.
   
   E.g., the new pool (as by the beginning template) will be,
   
   Code:

   icacls "C:\Program Files\Adobe" /remove "%username%"
   icacls "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe" /remove "%username%"
   icacls "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Macrovision Shared" /remove "%username%"
   icacls "C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe" /grant "%username%":(IO)(CI)F
   icacls "C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Adobe" /grant "%username%":(IO)(CI)F
   icacls "C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Macrovision Shared" /grant "%username%":(IO)(CI)F

4. Repeat this until you are able to single out a folder, such that removing or applying permissions to this one folder determines whether or not Photoshop crashes. When a folder is singled out, restart the process with a new pool of Icacls commands consisting of this folder’s subfolders and further hone in on the problem item.

Report back where this process leads you.

You may reapply the changes from post 27 at any time to get Photoshop working again, but please do not at any point run the changes mentioned in post 29.

I'll get on it this evening and let you know the outcome

Slowly working my way through, will take me a while but I'll finish it

I've tried everything, to the best of my ability, and cannot get it to not work now, or not run without Admin Rights. It runs everytime straight away. I'll re do it again to see if I missed something because it would be good to know so others can benefit if it happens to them. I'll report back again soon