"Access denied" when attempting to view / copy a file (Help? :)

  • Thread starter Thread starter Marc Brown
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M

Marc Brown

Got a weird problem, first time I ever encountered it. I'm using WinXP
Professional, which I pretty much had installed for me. That means I
don't know if I'm logged in as admin by default, nor do I know how to
determine whether or not I am (or indeed how to make it so that I AM
logged in as admin by default).

I got my hands on an archive of several image (jpg) files that has given
me some trouble. The archive tests okay with WinRAR. I can dearchive
the files to wherever I like. But once the files are there, I cannot:
move, rename, copy, view, or do ANYthing to the files apart from deleting
them and investigating their properties (which gives very limited info).
The attrib command from within command prompt reveals no abnormalities.

It has nothing to do with the phenomenon of being unable to modify a file
that is in use by another program. That's not the problem here. It seems
as though I've stumbled upon a rare permissions quandry, probably the
fault of whoever made the archive of images in the first place.

Would anyone know what steps I'll need to take in order to render the
files viewable / modifiable as normal? Thanks.
 
This sounds like a file ownership issue related to NTFS. Note, file
ownership and permissions supersede administrator rights. How you resolve
it depends upon which version of XP you are running.



XP-Home



Unfortunately, XP Home using NTFS is essentially hard wired for "Simple File
Sharing" at system level.

However, you can set XP Home permissions in Safe Mode. Reboot, and start
hitting F8, a menu should eventually appear and one of the
options is Safe Mode. Select it. Note, it will ask for the administrator's
password. This is not your administrator account, rather it is the
machine's administrator account for which users are asked to create a
password during setup.

If you created no such password, when requested, leave blank and press
enter.

Open Explorer, go to Tools and Folder Options, on the view tab, scroll to
the bottom of the list, if it shows "Enable Simple File Sharing" deselect it
and click apply and ok. If it shows nothing or won't let you make a change,
move on to the next step.

Navigate to the files, right click, select properties, go to the Security
tab, click advanced, go to the Owner tab and select the user that was logged
on when you were refused permission to access the files. Click apply and
ok. Close the properties box, reopen it, click add and type in the name of
the user you just enabled. If you wish to set ownership for everything in
the folder, at the bottom of the Owner tab is the following selection:
"Replace owner on subcontainers and objects," select it as well.

Once complete, you should be able to do what you wish with these files when
you log back on as that user.



XP-Pro



If you have XP Pro, temporarily change the limited account to
administrative. First, go to Windows Explorer, go to Tools, select Folder
Options, go to the View tab and be sure "Use Simple File Sharing" is not
selected. If it is, deselect it and click apply and ok.



If you wish everything in a specific folder to be accessible to a user,
right click the folder, select properties, go to the Security tab, click
Advanced, go to the Owner tab,
select the user you wish to have access, at the bottom of the box, you
should see a check box for "Replace owner on subcontainers and objects,"
place a check in the box and click apply and ok.

The user should now be able to perform necessary functions on files in the
folder even as a limited account. If not, make it an admin account again,
right click the folder, select Properties, go to the Security tab and be
sure the user is listed in the user list. If not, click add and type the
user name in the appropriate box, be sure the user has all the necessary
permissions checked in the permission list below the user list, click apply
and ok.

That should do it and allow whatever access you desire for that folder even
in a limited account.
 
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