Hi Philo -
Thanks for the reply.
I was copying a folder from the C drive of my XP Pro machine to the C Drive
of the Vista machine using "Network" & what Vista seems to call "Computer" (I
guess they save electrons by leaving off the "My"...). I tried copying both
the whole folder & individual files. I have (as an Administrator ) full
rights to the folder - whole drive as a matter of fact (except Boot. BootMgr,
Windows, etc.).
Some files would copy OK, but on any .zip or .exe files I got (above &
beyond the annoying UAC "Do you really think you're smarter than I am?"
msg's):
Destination Folder Access Denied
You need permission to perform this action (I already asked myself if it was
OK! ;-)
Then it lists the filename, size & date.
Followed by buttons: Try Again, Skip & Cancel.
This has me going (as if you couldn't tell). There must be something I'm
not aware of in Vista. I understand NT/XP/WinServer permissions. Heck - I'm
a (somewhat out of date, obviously) MCSE!
Regards,
Garret
Long semi-rant...
To get super technical what you're really seeing is NTFS file
permissions. Microsoft's new "security" push came up with UAC (User
Account Control) which while a good concept is poorly implemented
resulting in endless nag screens. So now many things before routine
get flagged as a "security risk" even silly things like trying to
delete a desktop shortcut or changing the time. Yuck! The good news is
you can switch it (UAC) on and off. From User Accounts in Control
Panel. You can also disable just the nag screens in some versions, not
others so easily. See another post I wrote a few days back.
The idea while marketed as a "security feature" is really nothing more
than a notification. UAC does NOT increase your security one bit, it
just nags.
As you discovered you can simply get past it by just clicking
continue. Sometimes twice. Grrrr. To avoid that and leave UAC on
including the nag screens you'll need to come to grips with file
ownership permissions. Not exaclty a steamy pulp fiction novel but it
is explained sort-of, in classic Microsoft double speak in the help
system.
It boils down to Vista thinking if any process needs access to the old
"administrator" level in XP, ie anything that can access the "system"
and thus even if only remotely be seen as a "threat" to Windows itself
or your data or hardware then it will nag first 'do you want to?",
then ask again are you sure?
So peek on the security tab of a folder, file or application. See all
that junk? That tells you who the "owner" is and what "permission"
they (as owner) have. Hint: Vista does not consider YOU the owner so
forget that concept as radical as it sounds. Even if you log on as a
administrator with password and all, that won't stop the nag screens.
If the owner doesn't have the "right" permission then Vista will nag
worse than any mother-in-law. The problem, especially for those new
the dizzing world of file permissions is there are all kinds of
"owner" classes that Vists all by itself could/will/may set up, in
classic Microsoft form without ever asking you first if it can or not.
To stop it, you need to elevate the owner of the
folder/file/application/whatever, in effect giving the owner greater
permission to do what Vista thinks it shouldn't. Double Yuck!
The fly in the ointment as I've whined on and on about here surely
pissing some some is you CAN NOT always change permissions or give the
current owner a higher or elevated permission. This is seen as
Microsoft bashing by some poor soles that aren't very computer
literate.
How much Vista nags depends on how your use your computer. If you move
a lot of files around and these files were created by some application
or process, especially in XP and they are now trasferred over to a
system now runnning Vista then get ready to have UAC bark its ass off
like a rabid dog. Did I mention you can turn the damn thing off?
