Solved Administrator doesn't have permission to save files in some places

[ShadowLiberal]

I'm running into a weird permissions issue I've never seen before on my brand new computer I got for Christmas. My computer has only one user account, since I'm the only person who uses it, and that account has administrator rights. Yet for some reason, I'm getting told I don't have permission to save files in the Program Files folder, or any folder within that folder. The message I get says this.

C:\Program Files (x86)\Old Documents Backup\test.doc
You don't have permission to save in this location.
Contact the administrator to obtain permission.
Would you like to save in the My Documents folder instead?

The weirdest part about me not having permission to save files to the 'Prograam Files (x86)' folder is that I CAN Delete anything I want in there, and copy any files/folders I want into there. I can also open any files there and read them just fine, but not save my changes to the same folder (or even overwrite the same document), Microsoft office says all the word documents I open in there are read only in the header.

At first I thought the documents I copied over from my old computer somehow got marked read only, but they aren't, the folder they're in isn't marked read only either.

On my old computer (also windows 7, but with much less power) I never had problems like this with the documents/etc I stored in the Program Files (x86) folder.

I've been looking the internet for over an hour for an answer for this, and haven't had much luck.

So bottom line, I need help at fixing this permissions issue.

(Note: While I know I could save my files somewhere other then Program Files (x86) to get around this problem, I want to fix the problem not work around it)

 

[Brink]

Hello ShadowLiberal, and welcome to Seven Forums.

This is normal. Windows 7 will not allow anything from an external source (ex: internet, email, external drive) to be saved directly into a system folder for security purposes of protecting the OS.

Instead, you could save the file to say your desktop, then be able to copy/move it into a system folder such as C:\Program Files (x86).

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[ShadowLiberal]

I know not to try to save anything into say the Windows folders and such, but these are my own folders that have no reason to be protected that windows isn't letting me save to. And I'd rather fix the problem instead of working my way around it, especially since my old windows 7 computer never had any problem like this, so I know what I want to do is possible.

Also, upon farther investigation today, some of my video games that record save files in the Program Files (x86) area (in a 'Save' folder in it's own directory) where they're installed are having the exact same problem, except in this case the saving either doesn't work, or just trying to open the saved game files causes the whole game to crash (these are 10+ year old games I did this test with, Might & Magic 6 and Might & Magic 7, more modern games on my computer throw their save files in my documents).

In this case it seems that right clicking on the short cuts to run the games and saying 'Run as Administrator' fixes the problem. No such luck at running word as administrator to fix the problem, while that works sometimes, other times it just gives me an error that says "There was a problem sending the command to the program" and doesn't open the document. And also it brings up a message "do you want to allow the following program to make changes to your computer" message about Microsoft Office every time I try to open a word document, which quickly gets very annoying.

 

[Brink]

Sounds like you have some sort of permissions issue.

As a test, create a new administrator account, log in to it, and see if you have the same issue in it.

 

[ShadowLiberal]

Ok, I created a test account, tried copy and pasting a word document into Program Files (x86), it brought up the same 'you'll need to provide administrator permission to copy to this folder' message, I hit continue to copy it.

I opened the word document, it said '(Read Only)' in the header, I made a few quick changes to the document, and hit the red X at the top right hand corner of word and was asked if I wanted to save, I said yes and added a 1 to the end of the word document name and tried to save it in the same Program Files (x86) folder I opened the document from. It gave me the same 'you don't have permission to save this file here, would you like to save in my documents instead' message.

So pretty much zero was different from before using my old administrator account. I also tried this test with a standard user, and got the exact same result.

 

[MilesAhead]

I had a similar issue with scripting languages that save the script and compile it n a folder under the install folder in Program Files. One of them I could work around by using Run As Administrator in Compatibility Tab for the editor and compiler. The other language I just moved the script folder out from under Program Files to my own C:\MyDocs folder.

 

[ShadowLiberal]

I had a similar issue with scripting languages that save the script and compile it n a folder under the install folder in Program Files. One of them I could work around by using Run As Administrator in Compatibility Tab for the editor and compiler. The other language I just moved the script folder out from under Program Files to my own C:\MyDocs folder.

For the moment I have moved the documents into a 'C:\Other Documents' folder outside of Program Files to get around the problem like you said you did, and I have set the short cuts for effected games/etc in Program Files to always run as administrator.

But like I said, I'd much prefer to find a solution rather than a workaround because I'm stubborn, and I'm a professional software developer, so giving up feels like admitting I'm bad at my job. Even though working on this problem makes me feel like I'm banging my head against the the wall for all the good I've accomplished at fixing it so far.

 

[MilesAhead]

I don't know if there is a fix short of running as the real administrator. It seems each release gets more restrictive. I think before running as admin I tried taking ownership of all files in the program files trees. It didn't make any difference.

Edit: did you try taking ownership btw? I should keep logs because I forget exactly what I did on W7 to save files inside program files. I just got W8 and it feels more restrictive but maybe it's just because I don't remember the work-around hassle for W7 as time went by. But I know on W7 I kept my scripts under program files. Sorry for the confusion. This is my first Laptop I'm using so I'm still a bit distracted. I just got it in October.

 

[ShadowLiberal]

Attempting to take ownership gives me an error.

Title: Windows Security
Message: Unable to set new owner on Program Files (x86).
Access is denied

It seems that the owner of the folder though is set to 'TrustedInstaller'.

It seems that if I try to edit the list of permissions for each user account in the Program Files (x86) folder that the checkboxes are now grayed out to. Before they weren't grayed out, but windows wouldn't let me change the permissions anyway.

 

[MilesAhead]

Did you try using this technique?
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1911-take-ownership-shortcut.html

 

[ShadowLiberal]

Did you try using this technique?
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1911-take-ownership-shortcut.html

OMG that worked! Thank you so much for posting that link, and to Mark for writing registry shortcut.

 

[MilesAhead]

You're welcome. Glad it worked for you.