How to gain permission to do anything like with XP

[moundtown]

I loved XP but I finally had to bite the bullet and move on to Windows 7. So far it's been nothing but a nuisance. Everything I try to do, like move or delete a file, brings up a "you don't have permission" message. Once I figure out how to get past one another one pops up for something else. My question is, how can I make 7 let me do whatever I want without being asked about permission like I could in XP? I am the only person with access to this computer.

 

[Berkey]

I loved XP but I finally had to bite the bullet and move on to Windows 7. So far it's been nothing but a nuisance. Everything I try to do, like move or delete a file, brings up a "you don't have permission" message. Once I figure out how to get past one another one pops up for something else. My question is, how can I make 7 let me do whatever I want without being asked about permission like I could in XP? I am the only person with access to this computer.

Welcome to the Forums!

Here are a couple of links to check out to get started on permissions and accessing:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/11841-run-administrator.html

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/122666-permissions-allow-deny-users-groups.html

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/299-user-account-control-uac-change-notification-settings.html

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/24232-sharing-permissions.html

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/129063-take-ownership-allow-prevent-users-groups.html

 

[moundtown]

Thanks a million. That take ownership context menu trick is amazing and solved my problem.

 

[Berkey]

Thanks a million. That take ownership context menu trick is amazing and solved my problem.

Glad I could help

 

[doctore]

Thanks a million. That take ownership context menu trick is amazing and solved my problem.

You are going to pay a hefty price if a virus comes around

Your "issue" is not with permissions, but with UAC. You can either deal with it or turn it off.

 

[Berkey]

Thanks a million. That take ownership context menu trick is amazing and solved my problem.

You are going to pay a hefty price if a virus comes around

Your "issue" is not with permissions, but with UAC. You can either deal with it or turn it off.

I'll second the UAC point, as I have mine set to high and sure at times it becomes a little annoying, but realistically it 2 seconds of time and rarely occurs in multiple successions. If you feel comfortable with moving and altering files and folders then go ahead and turn it off, that will reduce your issues a whole lot more than taking ownership. I misread your post as a permissions issue at first, normally i wouldn't have put the take ownership link in unless there was a bigger issue at hand. Thanks for the catch doctore

 

[moundtown]

Thanks a million. That take ownership context menu trick is amazing and solved my problem.

You are going to pay a hefty price if a virus comes around

Your "issue" is not with permissions, but with UAC. You can either deal with it or turn it off.

How is taking ownership over everything different then what I had with XP? I was never asked for permission to do anything with XP.

 

[Berkey]

Thanks a million. That take ownership context menu trick is amazing and solved my problem.

You are going to pay a hefty price if a virus comes around

Your "issue" is not with permissions, but with UAC. You can either deal with it or turn it off.

How is taking ownership over everything different then what I had with XP? I was never asked for permission to do anything with XP.

Technically I don't think it would, but I really haven't had the need to take ownership, except for a few customization changes (backgrounds, icons and the like) Starting with an inactive UAC is kind of step one in the chain of "annoying windows popup" command, but taking ownership pretty much gives you the deed to the OS.

I do recall seeing a post here about someone thinking their C: drive became corrupt after claiming ownership over the entire system, but I don't think it was ever confirmed.

Back up and images are always advised.

Hope everything works out for you with 7!

 

[doctore]

Thanks a million. That take ownership context menu trick is amazing and solved my problem.

You are going to pay a hefty price if a virus comes around

Your "issue" is not with permissions, but with UAC. You can either deal with it or turn it off.

How is taking ownership over everything different then what I had with XP? I was never asked for permission to do anything with XP.

You are again confusing permissions with a simple warning. Those pop-ups are not asking for permission (if you are an admin), they are simply warning you that you are about to do some changes to the system. It's a security measure, nothing more. For example, if a malicious program tries to install itself (or something else) you could get the UAC pop-up, which would alert you that something is amiss, since you did not attempt a program installation.

Granting yourself permissions that you don't need is a big security flaw. If you get a virus and you have full control - guess what, the virus also has full control. It's actually best to log in to your computer as a standard user, at most, as this would reduce attack surface. Even administrators don't usually log in as admins

 

[moundtown]

You are going to pay a hefty price if a virus comes around

Your "issue" is not with permissions, but with UAC. You can either deal with it or turn it off.

How is taking ownership over everything different then what I had with XP? I was never asked for permission to do anything with XP.

You are again confusing permissions with a simple warning. Those pop-ups are not asking for permission (if you are an admin), they are simply warning you that you are about to do some changes to the system. It's a security measure, nothing more. For example, if a malicious program tries to install itself (or something else) you could get the UAC pop-up, which would alert you that something is amiss, since you did not attempt a program installation.

Granting yourself permissions that you don't need is a big security flaw. If you get a virus and you have full control - guess what, the virus also has full control. It's actually best to log in to your computer as a standard user, at most, as this would reduce attack surface. Even administrators don't usually log in as admins

Thank you for your input. They were not simply warnings, they would say "you don't have permission" and then I could not perform functions like moving or deleting a file until I figured out how to get that permission. I kept running into this over and over. With XP I was able to perform any operations on any files or folders without ever having any permission issues. I also went for years without ever getting a computer virus. How is Windows 7 different?

 

[doctore]

Oh, I see what you are saying, it is indeed permissions. Are you logging in as a standard user, instead of the admin? It's weird, since admins are granted ownership automatically and when you install Windows 7 - the first user is member of the admin group. What's even weirder is that only an admin can make changes to Local Policy

What you are describing is indeed not a normal Win 7 behavior. Who did you grant permission to take ownership, if you don't mind me asking?

 

[moundtown]

Oh, I see what you are saying, it is indeed permissions. Are you logging in as a standard user, instead of the admin? It's weird, since admins are granted ownership automatically and when you install Windows 7 - the first user is member of the admin group. What's even weirder is that only an admin can make changes to Local Policy

What you are describing is indeed not a normal Win 7 behavior. Who did you grant permission to take ownership, if you don't mind me asking?

I'm logging in as the admin and I still had to use the take ownership registry patch. So I guess I granted the admin permission to take ownership.

 

[doctore]

So when you double clicked on "Take ownership of files or other objects" the box was blank? And now it has your user name there or the "Administrators" group?

Something is wrong here, because simply taking ownership does nothing, but grant you the right to change permissions.

 

[moundtown]

So when you double clicked on "Take ownership of files or other objects" the box was blank? And now it has your user name there or the "Administrators" group?

Something is wrong here, because simply taking ownership does nothing, but grant you the right to change permissions.

All I know is that when I am unable to access, move, or delete a file or folder, and then I use the Take Ownership context menu command on the object, I can do whatever I want with it.