How do I reset file permissions on XP Home?

[Jeremy Stanley]

I have a laptop with XP Home and a desktop with Win2K Pro. Often,
when I'm trying to read the laptop's files over the network, I get an
"Access Denied" error on a file for no particular reason--even though
other files in the same folder can be accessed. Before you ask, no,
the offending file isn't in use.

Actually, this happens going both directions, but on the Win2K system
I can go to the Security tab in the file's properties, delete the
errant permissions that somehow got set, and make the file inherit the
parent folder's permissions. On the XP Home laptop, though, the
Security tab is missing.

I know that it reappears in Safe Mode, but I'm not willing to reboot
into Safe Mode every time this happens. I'd be more than happy to use
the CACLS.EXE tool if I could figure out how to make it reset the
permissions and inherit the parent folder's permissions, but all I can
see in the help is how to explicitly allow or deny a particular user
or group, and that's not what I want to do.

Anyone know how to make CACLS.EXE do that? Or even better, to bring
back the Security tab in XP Home without being in Safe Mode?

 

[Malke]

I have a laptop with XP Home and a desktop with Win2K Pro. Often,
when I'm trying to read the laptop's files over the network, I get an
"Access Denied" error on a file for no particular reason--even though
other files in the same folder can be accessed. Before you ask, no,
the offending file isn't in use.

Actually, this happens going both directions, but on the Win2K system
I can go to the Security tab in the file's properties, delete the
errant permissions that somehow got set, and make the file inherit the
parent folder's permissions. On the XP Home laptop, though, the
Security tab is missing.

I know that it reappears in Safe Mode, but I'm not willing to reboot
into Safe Mode every time this happens. I'd be more than happy to use
the CACLS.EXE tool if I could figure out how to make it reset the
permissions and inherit the parent folder's permissions, but all I can
see in the help is how to explicitly allow or deny a particular user
or group, and that's not what I want to do.

Anyone know how to make CACLS.EXE do that? Or even better, to bring
back the Security tab in XP Home without being in Safe Mode?

Have you created identical user accounts and passwords on both machines?
Are you trying to access files in the XP Home My Documents folder? Try
putting files in the Shared Folder or in a different folder with
sharing enabled.

Malke