attrib AN

  • Thread starter Thread starter spudWA
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spudWA

Just starting using vista and I've found a file with AN attributes. I
know what A is but not N. attrib /? gives no help. It certainly makes
the file hard to share. I've created some programmatically using
standard fopen()... fclose().

CACLS and ICACLS dont seem to help either

Paul Tait
 
Hi Paul,

How are you obtaining the attributes and specifically what file are you
talking about?

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
 
Just starting using vista and I've found a file with AN attributes. I
know what A is but not N. attrib /? gives no help. It certainly makes
the file hard to share. I've created some programmatically using
standard fopen()... fclose().

CACLS and ICACLS dont seem to help either

Paul Tait
Click to expand...

Yes, got a number of those here too.

They seem to be predominantly folders .or xml, .log, .bak, .txt files.

A selection of examples here.....

C:\Users\All Users\Microsoft\Event Viewer\Views\ApplicationViewsRootNode
C:\Users\All Users\Microsoft\Event Viewer\Views\View_0.xml
C:\Users\All Users\Microsoft\Event Viewer\Views\View_1.xml
C:\Users\All Users\Microsoft\Event Viewer\Views\View_2.xml
C:\Users\All Users\Microsoft\Event Viewer\Views\View_3.xml
C:\Users\All Users\Microsoft\Event Viewer\Windows Logs
C:\Users\All Users\Microsoft\Event Viewer\Windows Logs\Channel_0.xml
C:\Users\All Users\Microsoft\Event Viewer\Windows Logs\Channel_1.xml
C:\Users\All Users\Microsoft\Event Viewer\Windows Logs\Channel_2.xml
C:\Users\All Users\Microsoft\Event Viewer\Windows Logs\Channel_3.xml
C:\Users\All Users\Microsoft\HTML Help
C:\Users\All Users\Microsoft\HTML Help\hhcolreg.dat
C:\Users\All Users\Microsoft\IdentityCRL
C:\Users\All Users\Microsoft\IdentityCRL\production
C:\Users\All Users\Microsoft\IdentityCRL\production\ppcrlconfig.dll
C:\Users\All Users\Microsoft\Media Index
C:\Users\All Users\Microsoft\Media Player
C:\Users\All Users\Microsoft\MF
C:\Users\All Users\Microsoft\RAC
C:\Users\All Users\Microsoft\RAC\PublishedData
C:\Users\All Users\Microsoft\RAC\PublishedData\PublishedRacMonAFLTable.DAT
 
HiPaul,

How are you obtaining the attributes and specifically what file are you
talking about?

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVPhttp://mvp.support.microsoft.com/
Windows help -www.rickrogers.org
Click to expand...

You can see either with the DOS ATTRIB command or in file explorer if
you show the attributes column
 
Hi,

What files are you running it on?

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVPhttp://mvp.support.microsoft.com/
Windows help -www.rickrogers.org
Click to expand...

one was cpp one was a h and a whole bunch of txt. why does the
extension matter?
 
Hi,

I wasn't curious about the extensions as much as I was more interested in
the location of them. It's hard to repro something if you don't know
precisely what they are doing and where.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
 
Hi,

I wasn't curious about the extensions as much as I was more interested in
the location of them. It's hard to repro something if you don't know
precisely what they are doing and where.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVPhttp://mvp.support.microsoft.com/
Windows help -www.rickrogers.org
Click to expand...

oh ok. We just migrated our in house app and development tree to
%USERPROFILE% and various sub directories so hopefully no permissions
problems but thats where the "AN"'s are. I just can't believe there's
no documentation on this!!!

Thanks Paul
 
oh ok. We just migrated our in house app and development tree to
%USERPROFILE% and various sub directories so hopefully no permissions
problems but thats where the "AN"'s are. I just can't believe there's
no documentation on this!!!

ThanksPaul
Click to expand...

oh ok. We just migrated our in house app and development tree to
%USERPROFILE% and various sub directories so hopefully no permissions
problems but thats where the "AN"'s are. I just can't believe there's
no documentation on this!!!

Thanks Paul
 
oh ok. We just migrated our in house app and development tree to
%USERPROFILE% and various sub directories so hopefully no permissions
problems but thats where the "AN"'s are. I just can't believe there's
no documentation on this!!!

Thanks Paul
Click to expand...

I've also noticed this N attribute and wondered what it is. Not had any
problems due to it, but I haven't tried sharing files at all yet.

For me, files / folders with the N attribute are:
- most files / folders under C:\Program Files\
- most files / folders under C:\ProgramData\
- most files / folders under C:\Users\<Name>\AppData\
- files in C:\Users\<Name>\, but not subfolders (except AppData)

Files / folders without the N attribute:
- most files / folders under C:\Windows\
- user data files / folders (Documents, Pictures etc.)


I've just looked at it a bit closer... look at the file / folder
properties. Click "Advanced" next to the attributes. It seems that
folders which are NOT indexed show the N attribute. Changing the "Index
this file/folder" attribute affects whether or not the file/folder shows
the N attribute. I don't know why this would affect file sharing though.

Mark.
 
I am unable to repro this, can you send a screen shot?

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVPhttp://mvp.support.microsoft.com/
Windows help -www.rickrogers.org
Click to expand...

I can't manually reproduce it either but it looks like this

C:\Documents and Settings\paul>attrib t.txt
AN C:\Documents and Settings\paul\t.txt
 
I can't manually reproduce it either but it looks like this

C:\Documents and Settings\paul>attrib t.txt
AN C:\Documents and Settings\paul\t.txt
Click to expand...

Try this

Start > Search
Type the following in the top right search box

attributes:an
 
Um, what are you doing in C:\Documents and Settings? Userprofiles in Vista
are under C:\Users. The former is just a pointer to the correct folder, not
a folder in and of itself. If I try to go there in a command prompt, it
allows it, but running attrib just gives me a 'path not found' error, which
would be correct.

I suspect though, that Mark is on to something about the indexing and I'm
trying to confirm it.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
 
Mark Bourne said:
(e-mail address removed) wrote:

I've just looked at it a bit closer... look at the file / folder
properties. Click "Advanced" next to the attributes. It seems that folders
which are NOT indexed show the N attribute. Changing the "Index this
file/folder" attribute affects whether or not the file/folder shows the N
attribute. I don't know why this would affect file sharing though.

Mark.
Click to expand...


Yep, that looks like a good explanation, and suggests it represents the
'NotContentIndexed' attribute in this list of possible file attributes (cf
'Members' section)

FileAttributes Enumeration
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.io.fileattributes(d=printer).aspx
 
Um, what are you doing in C:\Documents and Settings? Userprofiles in Vista
are under C:\Users. The former is just a pointer to the correct folder, not
a folder in and of itself. If I try to go there in a command prompt, it
allows it, but runningattribjust gives me a 'path not found' error, which
would be correct.

I suspect though, that Mark is on to something about the indexing and I'm
trying to confirm it.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVPhttp://mvp.support.microsoft.com/
Windows help -www.rickrogers.org
Click to expand...

oops you're right. I just cut and pasted from my other machine. I
edited it to show you was that N was just to the right of A. There is
an I attribute for indexing and I've tried explicitly ie. atrtrib -I
switching it off but I cant force the N attribute. Even if it was to
do with indexing I cant imagine why it would stop sharing over the
network. Perhaps its a temporary attribute which is set until the
indexing service has scanned the file? Theres nothing in the SDK
documentation about this attribute but there is FILE_ATTRIBUTE_NORMAL
BUT there is something interesting about "Transacted Operations"
documented in GetFileAttributes in the SDK which will give a sharing
violation

Paul Tait

Paul Tait
 
oops you're right. I just cut and pasted from my other machine. I
edited it to show you was that N was just to the right of A. There is
an I attribute for indexing and I've tried explicitly ie. atrtrib -I
switching it off but I cant force the N attribute. Even if it was to
do with indexing I cant imagine why it would stop sharing over the
network. Perhaps its a temporary attribute which is set until the
indexing service has scanned the file? Theres nothing in the SDK
documentation about this attribute but there is FILE_ATTRIBUTE_NORMAL
BUT there is something interesting about "Transacted Operations"
documented in GetFileAttributes in the SDK which will give a sharing
violation

PaulTait

PaulTait
Click to expand...

Just found out some extra info on the creation of all these "N"
attributes. Turns out my boss originally set himself up as an
Administrator but then dropped back to normal user. The "N" files are
created in the directories he created in his original security
context. Its a bit strange as he was and is the owner but NTFS is
getting its knickers in a knot because he is no longer an admin. Also
some of the directories were originally copied from an XP machine into
the root of c: and then into %LOCALAPPDATA% when we couldn't get
things to run properly. So overall this problem is probably our own
creation but an undocumented attribute is very interesting. Is it the
NO_ACCESS or the NOTHING attrib????

I'm heading over to sysinternals to see if their forum is unlocked yet

Paul
 
Just found out some extra info on the creation of all these "N"
attributes. Turns out my boss originally set himself up as an
Administrator but then dropped back to normal user. The "N" files are
created in the directories he created in his original security
context. Its a bit strange as he was and is the owner but NTFS is
getting its knickers in a knot because he is no longer an admin. Also
some of the directories were originally copied from an XP machine into
the root of c: and then into %LOCALAPPDATA% when we couldn't get
things to run properly. So overall this problem is probably our own
creation but an undocumented attribute is very interesting. Is it the
NO_ACCESS or the NOTHINGattrib????

I'm heading over to sysinternals to see if their forum is unlocked yet

Paul
Click to expand...

Just found this googling in groups for
FILE_ATTRIBUTE_NOT_CONTENT_INDEXED
So it looks like my theory that the indexing service has the file
locked may be right

I guess for testing purposes you were copying large amount of
files/directories to your temp directory. When files/directories are
copied
FILE_ATTRIBUTE_NOT_CONTENT_INDEXED attributes is set on them and then
removed by the indexing service??(hope someone can explain the
internals of this behavior). But it takes sometime till the attribute
is removed from all the files/dirs

This article explains that the indexing service which runs at SYSTEM
level locks un-indexed files for 1-5 minutes and gives err=5 access
denied

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/329065
 
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