Solved Folders stuck on "read-only" mode?

[TheColdOne]

This is the closest I could find as far as a relevant forum section for this problem.

The sub-folders within my "My Pictures" folder won't let me save directly to them. For example, I would just save an image from the internet directly to a specific folder for organizational reasons, but it says "access denied". BUT when I try to save it to "My Pictures" it works just fine! And then I have to move it later to the folder I wanted it in originally.

I tried going to the main Pictures folder and un-checking the "Read Only" box (which was checked for some reason), but that didn't work (included all sub folders). I also tried to doing that directly to a folder I wanted to save to, no luck.

I also seem to just not be able to do much of any basic things with the images inside of "My Pictures", including just a simple rotation! This seems like a real issue.

 

[antt]

that is weird. When you unchecked the folders, was it a tick in the box or a blue square? a tick means it is read only, a blue square just means its in a 'no-attributes' state (counter-intuitive i know).

 

[Tews]

Take ownership of the folder/file....

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Take ownership of the folder/file....

Here's a nice tutorial for a shortcut, at the link below.



http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1911-take-ownership-shortcut.html?ltr=T

 

[TheColdOne]

Taking ownership worked, but I'm surprised I had to resort to that.

And antt, it was a blue box, not a tick/check.

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Glad to see you have it sorted.

 

[Andrew7]

Hi

I have made ownership of the my documents folder and when I i check the box (blue square in the box) it makes everything unread but when i open it up again all the folders in the my documents are still read only but the my documents as unread. I have tried the attrib -r in the cmd.exe

I am running windows 7 home basic on a 32bit system

 

[Knux Kitsune]

I've had this problem ever since I reinstalled Windows. It didn't do it before. It's annoying, just about every folder on both my drives defaults to read-only and I can't save or extract any files in say the TEMPORARY FOLDER!!!! AAARRRRRRGHHHH!!!!! I hate you, Microsoft! Fix this problem NOW! I can't install my new wireless card because it can't write two driver files to the C:\Users\(me)\Temp folder. I uncheck read-only and run it...it's back to read only before it finishes applying. It's read-only no matter what I do. I've run cmd as administrator and applied the attrib -r C:\Users and it drops to the next line, but the folder is still Read-Only! I've downloaded that registry file to take ownership and I've then unchecked read only and it still comes back. Am I going to have to reinstall Windows to fix this problem?!

 

[traveendra1]

My problem was that Windows Live Photo Gallery would not let me make changes in the files in the folder... I tried several things noted on the forum but what ultimately worked was something that struck me when I planned to merge all partitions into one so that I may have to save the default pictures folder too in the main C drive... I created new folder in my D and pasted one photo from somewhere into it and checked whether Windows Live Photo Gallery would let me make changes in the folder... It worked and so I copied all child folders and files back into same named folders from my C-drive. So this is a new folder that was created in the D partition only and not something that was inherited by copying or other processes...

 

[zBobG]

All Windows folders are always marked read-only. This does not mean that they are read-only. The Windows folder read-only flag can never be changed by the user, all Windows folders will always be flagged as read-only.

Windows uses the folder read-only flag for internal purposes. Improper Windows permissions may stop access to a folder but a user with proper permissions can always write into a folder regardless of the setting of the folder read-only flag.

The folder read-only flag setting serves only one purpose, it is there to allow a user to mark all the files inside the folder as read-only or not read-only all at one time.

It is possible for a programmer to change the folder read-only flag to "not read-only" but absolutely nothing is gained by doing this.

From a technical point of view it's true, a folder "object" is read-only to the user. A folder is a Windows object, much like an ordinary file, that is a collection of data containing information about the folder. The folder object is managed by the Windows file system and only Windows has permission to change any of that folder object data.

 

[Jamblaster]

Not really solved.

...

 

[mrbi11]

the posted info is definitively not a complete solution

I found many problems.

I think they originated when i confused Explorer. I accidentally deleted the folder it stored "favorites" in, so my favorites disappeared. Not quite dumb as it sounds, some expletive install hijacked the folder. Anyway, fixed that and this read only problem began. Could be coincidence.

If you look at properties permissions, it showed i had permissions, but they were grayed out.
It showed incorrect owner on some root folders, not others. Grayed out permissions everywhere.

Fixed owner. Still grayed out.

Properties - security - advanced - permissions tab - change permissions
Uncheck "include inheritable..." - OK - it should change all subfolders.

close all, reopen properties, still blue check on read-only

try and turn off read only says worked ...
but close/open permissions, still messed up.

It shows i have all permissions with black checkmarks and it still wont modify readonly

 

[mrbi11]

Seems fixed

ok, the blue checkbox stays on, but i can now save over files

 

[mrbi11]

Its blankety blank word, not windows 7

At least my issue was. The "read only" checkbox in folders confused me.


Word is opened to do preview files in Windows Explorer.

And Word wont let you save over the document opened in word.

Since you clicked the document to open it, its guaranteed to be the document currently being "previewed".

And they wonder why they lose market share.

 

[nik321]

someone please help me!!

after a regular windows update... all my files and folders suddenly became "Read Only"

- i tried running anti-spyware, anti-malwar and anti-virus but nothing happened
- i tried changing permissions for Users\App Data and Windows\Temp but nothing happened
- i tried the CMD prompt and used the -r -s command on my c:\users\(my folder) but nothing happened
- i tried going back to 10 different system restore points but the process always fails towards the end

now, my computer is constantly throwing up errors "cannot create temporary directory" when i try to open my Google Drive.

how can i fix this without doing a factory setting reset which will kill all the programs and license keys that i bought?

HELP!!

 

[mrbi11]

This is a different problem than I posted, which is ultimately a MS word bug.
Solutions mentioned in this thread for other problems with similar effect are worth looking in to.

A) I ran into a similar problem when i allowed something to install which was spam-ware and it changed ownership of the files.
First, I'd suggest checking ownership, the most likely culprit.

Before you change owenership wholesale, check related (google) user access control and ownership
for YOUR VERSION OF WINDOWS. MS made it extra bad in Windows 8, wherein user access control cannot be turned off, and even admin is prevented from accessing some files. If you are on windows 8,
the behavior of all this stuff is just different.

If you are on prior windows, try turning off user access control, which should allow you to access anything.
Log in to admin account.

My suggestions are diagnostic. Figure out what changed. Changing ownership of critical windows files
to you (such as in the windows folder) can break things. Its usually safe in your own documents folder.

good luck.

 

[Computer0304]

Hey you guys, upload in your own thread! Unless the problem is directly related, please move to another thread!

 

[mrbi11]

Dude, I think nik321's problem matches this thread exactly, and my reply was to that.
Posting a new thread would likely get some other HELPFUL person say not to post duplicate topics.

I'm sure the guy with the ruined computer appreciates your helpful response.

 

[nik321]

Thanks for defending my post, mrbi11... I do feel this post is fully relevant to this thread.

I have some good news... I downloaded the "Take Ownership" zip file to add the take ownership option to my right-click options.

Then I right-clicked the following folders and ran the take ownership option:

- C:\Windows
- C:\Users\<my folder>
- C:\Program Files (x86)

Now, everything looks like it is working

THANKS SO MUCH FOR YOUR HELP!!

I visited so many different support forums for this issue, but you were the only ones who could point me in the right direction.

 

[Computer0304]

Thanks for defending my post, mrbi11... I do feel this post is fully relevant to this thread.

I have some good news... I downloaded the "Take Ownership" zip file to add the take ownership option to my right-click options.

Then I right-clicked the following folders and ran the take ownership option:

- C:\Windows
- C:\Users\<my folder>
- C:\Program Files (x86)

Now, everything looks like it is working

THANKS SO MUCH FOR YOUR HELP!!

I visited so many different support forums for this issue, but you were the only ones who could point me in the right direction.

Ok, I am sorry for that. Its just that I thought it is wrong to do that but I get the point.