How to 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.

 

[Luis Ortega]

take ownership of the folders. You could take ownership of the entire
drive and all folders and subfolders. Try disabling UAC and see if this
releases them. In Vista, disabled folders are usually protected with
UAC. You really don't need access to them.

Thank you, but how does one take ownership of a drive or folder?
This is my first experience with Vista.

 

[PaulB]

Hi,
There are some folders in Vista that are not real folders, such as
"Documents and Settings". These are called junctions and are used to allow
legacy programs to interface with Vista's folder/file system. They can not be
accessed because they are not folders.

 

[Luis Ortega]

If you search Google there is plenty of info on how to take ownership...
however before you do so...
some of the folders are not even meant to be accessed:

see this

http://www.realtime-vista.com/general/2007/04/access_denied_to_documents_and.htm


Personally I think it very confusing!!!!

Thanks. It certainly is confusing.
There are multiple instance of folders all over windows explorer.
I have been trying to allow access and have succeeded on some but I am
just flying blind and have no idea if I am screwing everything up.
Some folders continue to be unaccessible and some are now accessible,
but I don't know in what order to be doing this or what the parent stuff
is all about.
I suspect that any moment now I will render the whole computer useless
and will be forced to reformat and reinstall the OS from scratch.
That may be just as well, since I need to learn how to use this thing
and I don't have a clue. Usually installing an OS is the first step in
learning how it works.
I am very familiar with xp and with building computers but this vista is
just very weird.
I wish that I could install xp on it but apparently there aren't any xp
drivers for this laptop's devices. It's a new Dell Studio 1535. The
hardware itself is nice but the OS is crap.

 

[Leo]

Step by step instruction on how to take ownership of a folder



Run CMD (as administrator) and type: takeown [path] /f <filename or folder>

OR

- Right-click the file/folder you want to own, click properties

- Click Security Tab

- Click Advanced

- Click the Owner Tab

- Click Edit

- Select the Administrators group from the list

- Click OK

- Click OK

- Click OK

You have now taken 'Ownership' of the file and you can close the property

Windows



Now again



1) Right-click on the file

2) Select Properties

3) Go to the Security tab again, click the Advanced button

4) Now Press Edit, then double-click 'Administrators' in the list and tick

the 'allow' box for 'Full control'



You have now taken 'Full control' of file


--
Leo

Forget world peace. Visualize using your turn signal.

 

[Leo]

Maybe this wwill help.

Junctions in Vista

Junctions (folders w/shortcut arrows) aren't actually folders but are pretty
much shortcuts, to get old legacy stuff from where it was in XP to the new
folders in Vista. In Vista all that stuff is in users drive:\Users\your name.
Use a command prompt to see which folders are Junctions. Type dir /al to show
just Junctions. Or a dir /a will work.


--
Leo

Forget world peace. Visualize using your turn signal.

 

[Luis Ortega]

Step by step instruction on how to take ownership of a folder



Run CMD (as administrator) and type: takeown [path] /f <filename or
folder>

OR

- Right-click the file/folder you want to own, click properties

- Click Security Tab

- Click Advanced

- Click the Owner Tab

- Click Edit

- Select the Administrators group from the list

- Click OK

- Click OK

- Click OK

You have now taken 'Ownership' of the file and you can close the property

Windows



Now again



1) Right-click on the file

2) Select Properties

3) Go to the Security tab again, click the Advanced button

4) Now Press Edit, then double-click 'Administrators' in the list and tick

the 'allow' box for 'Full control'



You have now taken 'Full control' of file

Thanks, I will give this a try and see how it goes.

 

[Paul Montgomery]

Hi Luis,

You could just add it to your right click context menu with this .reg
file

Or you can hold down the SHIFT key, right-click the folder and what
you want is right there.

 

[Mr. Arnold]

Thanks. It certainly is confusing.
There are multiple instance of folders all over windows explorer.
I have been trying to allow access and have succeeded on some but I am
just flying blind and have no idea if I am screwing everything up.
Some folders continue to be unaccessible and some are now accessible, but
I don't know in what order to be doing this or what the parent stuff is
all about.
I suspect that any moment now I will render the whole computer useless and
will be forced to reformat and reinstall the OS from scratch.
That may be just as well, since I need to learn how to use this thing and
I don't have a clue. Usually installing an OS is the first step in
learning how it works.
I am very familiar with xp and with building computers but this vista is
just very weird.
I wish that I could install xp on it but apparently there aren't any xp
drivers for this laptop's devices. It's a new Dell Studio 1535. The
hardware itself is nice but the OS is crap.

http://www.nirmaltv.com/2008/07/11/how-to-take-ownership-of-files-and-folders-in-vista/

Vista is not XP, and you need to start learning how to use Vista. However,
taking ownership of a <c>, folders and files in folders is no different than
on XP. But, you can't take ownership of everything not on Vista like you
could on XP.

Some folders like Program Files, C:\Windows and registry keys etc etc have
more protection applied to them then any previous version of the NT based
O/S. Vista is not an open by default O/S like XP.

Your out of the box user/admin account or any subsequent user/admin accounts
are not user/admin accounts that have full admin access to everything,
because those user/admin accounts don't inherit full admin rights from the
built-in Administrator account like it does on XP, even with UAC disabled.

This is the only user account on Vista that has full admin rights at all
times that your Standard user(user/admin) account do not have the same
rights.

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/wind...idden-administrator-account-on-windows-vista/
<http://www.computerperformance.co.u...a_Administrator_-_Super_User_(Hidden_Account)>

You should read about the *benefits* of using that built-in Administrator
account.

And here is where that Administrator account might come into play, as an
example.
http://chrisbensen.blogspot.com/2007/02/com-registration-under-microsoft.html

You should take the time to understand what is under the hood of Vista and
how to use Vista, because it far out classes any previous version of the NT
based O/S.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc709691.aspx
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Admin-Approval-Mode-in-Windows-Vista-45312.shtml
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc138019.aspx
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc160882.aspx
http://itsvista.com/2007/03/base-filtering-engine/
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/network/wfp.mspx

The key to Vista is to not install none Vista compliant software on Vista,
like some solutions that are dedicated to run on the XP platform, because
that is nothing but trouble on Vista as that can lead to other solutions and
Vista itself to start aborting.

http://www.bestvistadownloads.com/

There are more things under the hood of Vista that makes it different. You
say you know XP. Then why can't you do the same with Vista.?

However, you can disable things like UAC, run with the built-in
Administrator account and shut down services, that will return you back to
running on a malware bait O/S, just XP, with full admin rights as you run
on the Internet wide open to attack, just like you did before.

 

[philo]

Thanks. It certainly is confusing.
There are multiple instance of folders all over windows explorer.
I have been trying to allow access and have succeeded on some but I am
just flying blind and have no idea if I am screwing everything up.
Some folders continue to be unaccessible and some are now accessible,
but I don't know in what order to be doing this or what the parent stuff
is all about.
I suspect that any moment now I will render the whole computer useless
and will be forced to reformat and reinstall the OS from scratch.
That may be just as well, since I need to learn how to use this thing
and I don't have a clue. Usually installing an OS is the first step in
learning how it works.
I am very familiar with xp and with building computers but this vista is
just very weird.
I wish that I could install xp on it but apparently there aren't any xp
drivers for this laptop's devices. It's a new Dell Studio 1535. The
hardware itself is nice but the OS is crap.

I'd stick it out...
again, some of the folders are not even 'real' folders...so as long as you
can keep
all your data in places where you can access if...
I'd probably just keep things the way they are and get used to it.

I personally am not a big Vista fan, but it's going to be around for a
while...
so I plan to slowly start using it...
though I still mainly use Win2k !!!