Odd problem after taking full ownership of C:

[ACR731]

First the basics... Asus G71G laptop; dual core T9400 CPU; Nvidia 9800m; 6gb ram; Win7 Pro x64. Drivers and everything up to date (I think).

What happens is that immediately following taking full ownership of C:, the "safely remove hardware" icon stops working. I can hover the mouse over the icon and the balloon text appears, but clicking or right-clicking on icon does nothing. I've tried different versions of Win 7, but this happens each time and only after taking ownership of C:. Even more odd is that this issue doesn't happen on my desktop, only on my laptop.

My first thought was a driver issue, but that really doesn't make sense as no hardware is being installed or removed at the time the issue happens. And before anyone responds with "why do you need to take ownership in the first place", I'll just say that I'm a major geek and always tinker with things. Its how I learn.... Its a minor problem, but one that (in my opinion) shouldn't happen.

Any help or suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Sorry if this is in the wrong section.... I'm new here.

 

[Coolness]

Why is the safely remove hardware icon in the tray in the first place if youre not installing any new hardware?

 

[ACR731]

Why is the safely remove hardware icon in the tray in the first place if youre not installing any new hardware?

I always install apps and other programs after a clean install from a portable HDD. I also keep work related stuff on the same drive that I access constantly. The icon is there pretty much most of the time, or hidden in the other box. At the moment I have another portable HDD connected that contains movies...

The issue occurs whether the icon is in the system tray or in the hidden box.

 

[Coolness]

Im sorry, i have no idea why this is happening, after all im only "skilled"
The other ppl here will surely help you.

 

[usasma]

I would suspect that taking ownership of the entire hard drive has somehow taken away from the stuff that "System" owned - and has somehow affected this (and this is a whole lotta speculation on my part).

There are ways to restore the permissions (both registry and file) - I've written about some of them here: Reset Registry Permissions (and the links there will help you find some more ways to remedy this issue).

 

[ACR731]

I would suspect that taking ownership of the entire hard drive has somehow taken away from the stuff that "System" owned - and has somehow affected this (and this is a whole lotta speculation on my part).

I understand what you are saying. However, for this to be accurate wouldn't the issue have to be duplicated on my desktop? I'm only seeing this on my laptop. This is what initially made me think there was a driver issue.

I think what I may end up doing is go one folder at a time in an attempt to try and narrow down exactly when the issue starts. It will be time consuming, but I'm on vacation all week and don't have much to do between now and Thursday.

Thanks for the assistance.

 

[Uber Philf]

It's not advised to take ownership for the entire C: drive, iv'e done it before, and that PC never booted again, couldn't load anything due to the files being denied for opening by the system because of my ownership. Fresh install was my solution.

 

[ACR731]

It's not advised to take ownership for the entire C: drive, iv'e done it before, and that PC never booted again, couldn't load anything due to the files being denied for opening by the system because of my ownership. Fresh install was my solution.

I haven't seen the PC behave in the manner you descried simply by taking full ownership of c:.... very strange.

I do think I have discovered a workaround for those who want to take full ownership. In my tinkering yesterday I found that if I assigned full ownership to the administrators group, rather than to my user name like I had been doing, the problem does not occur. I have no idea why this makes a difference but it does. It still doesn't identify why the other issue was occurring, but at least there is now an alternative.

Thanks again to those who provided some assistance.

 

[Uber Philf]

Tbh, i really don't see the point in taking complete ownership of the entire drive, only the system files that you must take ownership to modify/rename, like explorer.exe and ieframe.dll, and the Theme files that need to be patched to allow non standard themes.

But all of that aside, it's not my duty to question your intentions.

And glad to of help in some way.

 

[ACR731]

But all of that aside, it's not my duty to question your intentions.

I do understand that there really isn't a true need to take full ownership, and I understand why Microsoft decided to put the locks on tight. However, my only complaint is that if I spent the money on this OS, and I have administrator rights, who are they (Microsoft) to tell me what I can and can not access on ** MY ** computer? I miss this from XP, and its one of the reasons I never fully implemented Vista. Win 7 seems to be better, so I decided to take the plunge. I don't really have a need to stick with XP anymore.

I'm not a hacker or a virus writer. There aren't any "intentions" that I have, good, bad or otherwise. I'm just a person who knows a little more about computers than the average Joe, and I am just trying to learn a little about this OS. I like knowing how to get around some of the little obstacles that Microsoft put in place.

Thanks again.