I've lost control of permissions, how can get get control back?

[river251]

Thanks for reading this. Boy, do I need help.

Somehow I got my permissions all messed up. I can't access some folders. I have worked a lot trying to use properties-security tab and playing around, and I can sometimes change permissions so I can use a folder. But I am trying to open "Documents and Settings" and it will not let me change permissions on it and I can't get into it. I think I could before this mess started.


When I start up, instead of one account (jim) which had administrative privileges, now I have two, Administrators and jim. I always had all permissions with jim, but somehow it's messed up now.
Why can't I have complete control over my own computer as jim? Nobody else will ever use it, it's in my office. But Windows keeps stopping me over permissions, or the message "Access denied."

Anyway, so I logged out as administrator jim and logged in as Administrator. Now I don't even see the folder Documents and Settings.

How can I once and for all get complete control over my computer so I can open or delete any folder or file?

Thanks so much for any help, it's making me pull my hair out.

Jim

 

[dsperber]

There is no "Documents and Settings" for Win7, unless perhaps you've un-checked "hide protected operating system files". This "Documents and Settings" folder name is an XP concept, which for Win7 is really part of \Users.

If you open Explorer, and select on the "Organize" item on the menu bar, then "Folder and search options" from the dropdown list, and then View tab, you can CHECK that "hide protected operating system files (recommended)". That's a good thing. And it will also automatically prevent you from trying to access hidden system files that you have no business trying to access by that name since they're now invisible and cannot even be seen. They will instead appear with their proper folder names in Explorer, and you shouldn't be denied access to these properly named folders.

And while there, up a bit in the "hidden files and folders" item you should UN-CHECK the "show hidden files, folders and drives" item. That will let you see your \Users\<userid>\Appdata folder, where much is kept for each user... and you certainly should see \Users\Jim.

Underneath \Users\Jim you should also see \My Documents, \My Music, \My Pictures, etc., which is where your data (for Jim) would normally be saved unless you put it somewhere else.