How do you access denied folders?

[Luis Ortega]

I am pulling my hair out with this OS. I just got a new Dell laptop with
Vista Home Premium.
Since Dell doesn't provide drivers for win xp for it I am stuck with
this OS.
I am trying to organize it and set things up like I want but there are
lots of folders in Windows Explorer that keep denying me access, even
though I am the administrator.
How the hell do I gain access to all the folders on my computer?
This situation is completely unacceptable.
I have already tried all the usual things that one could do in XP to
allow access to system or hidden folders and files, but these denied
folders aren't even important in many cases.
Thanks a lot for any advice.

 

[Ringmaster]

I am pulling my hair out with this OS. I just got a new Dell laptop with
Vista Home Premium.
Since Dell doesn't provide drivers for win xp for it I am stuck with
this OS.
I am trying to organize it and set things up like I want but there are
lots of folders in Windows Explorer that keep denying me access, even
though I am the administrator.
How the hell do I gain access to all the folders on my computer?
This situation is completely unacceptable.
I have already tried all the usual things that one could do in XP to
allow access to system or hidden folders and files, but these denied
folders aren't even important in many cases.
Thanks a lot for any advice.

This topic comes up nearly every day. Scan older posts for more
details and opinions. If you're using Vista forget all you knew about
administrator. Things are radically different in Vista.

Enter the much hated UAC (User Account Control). The good news is you
can disable it from Control Panel. If you want to try to tame the
beast that is preventing your from accessing your files you need to
learn a bit about file ownership and related permissions.

Go to Windows Explorer, right click on some folders and files, then
Properties, then Security tab. The top section lists groups and users
the bottom what "rights" are given. To fully access all your files you
have to be accepted as that file's owner or at least have rights to
operate on the contents. You do that by adding yourself to the
group/user list if you don't already see the name you logged in on
already listed there. Next click Edit and for most situations give
yourself full permissions by checking all the entries under the allow
column.

Sadly there is no central location to do this from that effects
everything at once. You need to do it on a folder by folder basis. So
for example if you have a E drive taking ownership of that should
normally give you control over all folders on that drive.

 

[Luis Ortega]

This topic comes up nearly every day. Scan older posts for more
details and opinions. If you're using Vista forget all you knew about
administrator. Things are radically different in Vista.

Enter the much hated UAC (User Account Control). The good news is you
can disable it from Control Panel. If you want to try to tame the
beast that is preventing your from accessing your files you need to
learn a bit about file ownership and related permissions.

Go to Windows Explorer, right click on some folders and files, then
Properties, then Security tab. The top section lists groups and users
the bottom what "rights" are given. To fully access all your files you
have to be accepted as that file's owner or at least have rights to
operate on the contents. You do that by adding yourself to the
group/user list if you don't already see the name you logged in on
already listed there. Next click Edit and for most situations give
yourself full permissions by checking all the entries under the allow
column.

Sadly there is no central location to do this from that effects
everything at once. You need to do it on a folder by folder basis. So
for example if you have a E drive taking ownership of that should
normally give you control over all folders on that drive.

Thanks a lot for the info. I will try this out now. I had already turned
off UAC because it was so intrusive but that made no difference.

 

[gls858]

I am pulling my hair out with this OS. I just got a new Dell laptop with
Vista Home Premium.
Since Dell doesn't provide drivers for win xp for it I am stuck with
this OS.
I am trying to organize it and set things up like I want but there are
lots of folders in Windows Explorer that keep denying me access, even
though I am the administrator.
How the hell do I gain access to all the folders on my computer?
This situation is completely unacceptable.
I have already tried all the usual things that one could do in XP to
allow access to system or hidden folders and files, but these denied
folders aren't even important in many cases.
Thanks a lot for any advice.

You don't say which folder you are tryin gto access but keep in mind
that Vista repalced the documents and settings folder with the Users
folder. Here's a link that explains it.

http://www.computerperformance.co.uk/vista/vista_appdata.htm

gls858

 

[Mr. Arnold]

Thanks a lot for the info. I will try this out now. I had already turned
off UAC because it was so intrusive but that made no difference.

Yes, you are correct that it makes no difference even with UAC disabled,
because your user/admin account on Vista the one out of the box that Vista
gave you is NOT an account that has full admin rights.

There is only one account that gives you those full admin rights on Vista,
and it's the hidden built-in Administrator account on Vista. It is the same
built-in Administrator account on XP, and you have to active it on Vista in
order to use that account. Your user/admin account out of the box that Vista
gives you or any new user/admin accounts that you may create on Vista do not
inherit full admin rights from the built-in Administrator account, like XP.

Hey, you can go to the Program Files or C:\Windows folders to the Security
tab and see if you can add a new user account, update the permissions of an
existing user account or delete a user account off the folders. You can't do
it with UAC disabled either, and you cannot even do it with the built-in
Administrator account, which has more power than your out of the box
user/admin account that Vista gives.

Those folders are protected and some folders within those folders are
protected from even an admin.

 

[Jimmy Brush]

Hello,

If you have disabled the hiding of operating system files, you will see what
appear to be system folders with familiar names like "Documents and
Settings" and "My Music". They are shown with a transparent icon and a
shortcut arrow.

These are not really folders and contain no data. They are only there to
assist some old programs. Windows Vista has moved or renamed many familiar
locations.

If there is a specific location you are looking for, we can help you find
it.

- JB

 

[Luis Ortega]

Yes, you are correct that it makes no difference even with UAC disabled,
because your user/admin account on Vista the one out of the box that
Vista gave you is NOT an account that has full admin rights.

There is only one account that gives you those full admin rights on
Vista, and it's the hidden built-in Administrator account on Vista. It
is the same built-in Administrator account on XP, and you have to
active it on Vista in order to use that account. Your user/admin account
out of the box that Vista gives you or any new user/admin accounts that
you may create on Vista do not inherit full admin rights from the
built-in Administrator account, like XP.

Hey, you can go to the Program Files or C:\Windows folders to the
Security tab and see if you can add a new user account, update the
permissions of an existing user account or delete a user account off the
folders. You can't do it with UAC disabled either, and you cannot even
do it with the built-in Administrator account, which has more power than
your out of the box user/admin account that Vista gives.

Those folders are protected and some folders within those folders are
protected from even an admin.

Thanks, so how do I activate this hidden admin account?

 

[Luis Ortega]

Hello,

If you have disabled the hiding of operating system files, you will see
what appear to be system folders with familiar names like "Documents and
Settings" and "My Music". They are shown with a transparent icon and a
shortcut arrow.

These are not really folders and contain no data. They are only there to
assist some old programs. Windows Vista has moved or renamed many
familiar locations.

If there is a specific location you are looking for, we can help you
find it.

- JB

Thanks,
What I want is full access to all my folders on my computer.
I am the sole user and it's insane that vista gets to decide what I can
access and what I can't.
I have tried to gain ownership and have been able to do so on some
folders but not on others.
I just don't know where to start because there are so many different
locations of the same folder.

Also, I can't even organize my start folder because if I use the start
menu advanced approach to getting there it leads to an empty folder.
The actual program shortcuts seem to be stored in a different folder to
where the start folder advanced option leads me, namely some folder in
the program data folder, but that one isn't accessible because I am
denied access rights.
There are so many damn folders with similar names in different areas,
such as my name, user, default user, etc. that the whole thing is
driving me nuts.
This OS is a real pain. I wish that I could install xp but there are no
xp drivers for its devices.
Do you think that wiping out the hard drive and reinstalling the OS
myself would create an admin account that was really mine? I suspect
that since the Dell people did the first install they may have set
things up differently to what I could do if I installed the OS myself.
Is the installation process about the same as for xp?
Can I format and partition the drive as I like and then install vista
with custom settings?
I just got the laptop and haven't really installed any of my own
software, so there isn't much there to reinstall other than the OS.
And I would like to not install all of the crap and trial software that
Dell throws on, and just deleting it now will probably leave a lot of
trash hidden all over the drive and the registry.

 

[Gordon]

Thanks,
What I want is full access to all my folders on my computer.
I am the sole user and it's insane that vista gets to decide what I can
access and what I can't.
I have tried to gain ownership and have been able to do so on some folders
but not on others.
I just don't know where to start because there are so many different
locations of the same folder.

I may be wrong, but you don't appear to have given us an example of a folder
you can't access. There are some folders in Vista that aren't folders but
junction points. An example of this is the "folder" called Documents and
Settings. You won't be able to access this, even if you were Bill Gates
himself because it is NOT a folder.
For example - the ONLY folder that I cannot apparently access on my C drive
is System Volume information. ALL other folders I can access by supplying
the Admin password.
So I repeat - please give us an example of a FOLDER you can't access.

 

[Mr. Arnold]

Thanks, so how do I activate this hidden admin account?

You should view/read my post to you in the Vista.Installation_Setup NG that
has the information and more.

 

[Peter Foldes]

Which folder. Can you give us a hint maybe. As Jimmy Brush and also Gordon explained give us which folder. You might not be able to do what you are asking for even if you go the Administrator route. Which folder is it ???????????

 

[Luis Ortega]

I may be wrong, but you don't appear to have given us an example of a
folder you can't access. There are some folders in Vista that aren't
folders but junction points. An example of this is the "folder" called
Documents and Settings. You won't be able to access this, even if you
were Bill Gates himself because it is NOT a folder.
For example - the ONLY folder that I cannot apparently access on my C
drive is System Volume information. ALL other folders I can access by
supplying the Admin password.
So I repeat - please give us an example of a FOLDER you can't access.

Thanks.
As an example, I wanted to organize my start/ programs list and tried to
do so by going through the task bar/start folder/ advanced route to see
the list of shortcuts but this led to an empty start/programs folder.
I checked the location of a program by looking at its path in properties
on my start button and this revealed that the shortcuts were actually on
another start folder within the program data folder. I navigated to that
in windows explorer and tried to open it and it was denied.
I can find no instance of a start folder that I can access on my c drive
that actually contains the list of installed programs that I see when I
press the start button on the taskbar.
This is very frustrating and it shouldn't be so hard to deal with this
OS. I've been a windows user with every version since 3.11 and it was
never such a nightmare to get to grips with how to manage my os.
I got a mac last year for my son and had never used osx but it was
incredibly straightforward and clear to figure out. Why is vista so
problematic?

 

[Gordon]

Thanks.
As an example, I wanted to organize my start/ programs list

Default location here:
C:\Users\{Your Account name here}\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start
Menu

That's easily accessed under Windows Explorer.....

 

[Jimmy Brush]

While the security in Windows can be frustrating, I don't think it's
Microsoft's intention to keep us from accessing our computer. In a lot of
cases, we get the feeling that we are being limited because things that we
have always done a certain way stop working, and we have to find a different
way of doing the same thing.

Learning which folders are real and which ones are "fake" that always throw
access denied is a good example.

There are lots of discussions around whether these changes are actually
benefiting us in the long run, but the changes are there nonetheless ...
reinstalling Windows Vista won't help.

So far, though, I haven't ran accross anything I couldn't do in Vista that I
could do in XP. These newsgroups are a good place to discover and learn
about the changes.

- JB