Access to directories not allowed

  • Thread starter Thread starter George
  • Start date Start date
C:\Documents and settings in Vista isn't actually a directory, so it isn't
forbidden as such. I believe it's a "junction" for C:\Users which you can
access

Similarly C:\Users\All Users\Start Menu\ is actually
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu

If you look about you'll find the real location of all those "folders"

I suppose MS needed to keep something in the old locations for compatibility
with old badly coded apps, although why MS thought it'd be a good idea to
move everything about for the sake of it is a mystery to me

Peter Lawton
 
Hi George,

You can change permissions and give your account full permissions on a
directory, but it's generally not a good idea as malware can take advantage
of this. Things like "C:\Documents and Settings" are actually just junction
points, not real folders, that act as redirects to the real location of
those folders in Vista (in this instance C:\Users). They are there for
backwards compatibility with older applications that are hardcoded to expect
them to be there. There is nothing actually in a junction point.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com
 
I suppose MS needed to keep something in the old locations for
compatibility with old badly coded apps, although why MS thought it'd be a
good idea to move everything about for the sake of it is a mystery to me
Click to expand...

Two words: Simplification and Security.

For the first, getting rid of "My" <everything> was a response to a lot of
negative feedback. Other things, like D&S were overly and unnecessarily
long. The UI, for the user, is all about each simply having their own
desktop, folders, and applications. Nothing complicated.

For the second, moving applications from running in the system environment
to the user environment is quite a feat. Not only new applications designed
for Vista, but redirecting older ones to run in a virtual directory as well.
A lot had to be built in to the system for this latter event to happen,
otherwise users would be limited to only Vista compatible applications.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com
 
Simplification ?

MS change one thing that everyone is used to and software is written for to
something completely different but also keep the old locations as junctions
that can't actually be opened by users and hardly anyone understands or any
utilities handle correctly? That must be a uniquely MVP definition of
"Simplification" ;-)

Although I do totally agree with you that putting spaces in commonly used
paths was one of the stupidest ideas MS ever had (apart from Bob, Clippy,
WGA, Vista activation, DRM, x64 driver signing ...) and it's long past time
they returned to sanity. Junction Points however, in my personal opinion,
are much more of a nightmare than spaces in a few paths ever were.

Peter Lawton
 
Well, the choice was to either use junction points or to continue the same
poorly thought out default system paths. What's really stupid to me are
software writers that don't use variables, hard coding things like
C:\Windows instead of %windir%, or C:\Documents and Settings instead of
%userprofile%.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com
 
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