My Program Files folders are readonly???

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Guest

All my folders under Program Files are readonly and I cannot change them
back. Most of my program are not running because of that.
Any suggestion?
Thanks
 
Hi Asif

My Program Files folder is Read-Only too but my system runs all fine. I
think it might be because of something else. But if you believe that this is
the cause of your problem then I would like to ask if you tried to change the
folder attributes? If not then give it a shot.

To change the file attributes do this. Logon as the Administrator (if you
are not the admin then contact him, he might have set some security policy).
If you are the Admin then proceed to next step which is to open explorer by
double clicking the My Computer Icon. Now navigate to your system directory
(most likely to be C: but to be sure just type %SystemRoot% in your explorer
address bar). Now right click the Program Files folder and clear the
"Read-Only" attributes from it.

Please tell us if that works. In case you have tried it and Windows
resets/disallows changing the attributes then check if you have Administrator
permissions or not.
 
Hi Apoorv,

I have tried those things earlier and it didn't work for me. If I try to
change the readonly attribute on any folder under Program Files it does not
allow me.
Initially it was not even allowing me to see the contents of folders but I
just shared the folder and it let me see the contents but there are still few
folders it is not letting me share them. So I cannot see the contents and
even I cannot run those programs installed on those directories.
I have the Admin rights on the computer.

Thanks

Muhammed Asif
 
Muhammed said:
All my folders under Program Files are readonly and I cannot change
them back. Most of my program are not running because of that.
Any suggestion?
Thanks
Click to expand...

ALL folders on your computer will show as read-only and you can not change
it. The "read-only" in this case does NOT mean they're read-only to YOU.
It's a very poor choice of wording on MS's part, but the read-only
appearance on folders (only) will have NO impact on any files in that
folder.

Now, files are another matter; they should NOT be marked read-only. That
said, if the files were copied from a CD ROM or other types of storage, they
may automatically transfer with the read-only attribute still set as
evreything on a CD/DVD automatically is set to readonly. Even so, it
shouldn't stop most programs from working because the files are read-only,
because most of them are only read anyway and not written to.

So: Folders; nothing you can do about them and it doesn't impact anything.

HTH
Pop`
 
Apoorv said:
Hi Asif

My Program Files folder is Read-Only too but my system runs all fine.
I think it might be because of something else. But if you believe
that this is the cause of your problem then I would like to ask if
you tried to change the folder attributes? If not then give it a shot.
Click to expand...

That will fail; you cannot change the read only on a folder. It has no
impact on the files or even how they execute.

Pop
 
Muhammed said:
Hi Apoorv,

I have tried those things earlier and it didn't work for me. If I try
to change the readonly attribute on any folder under Program Files it
does not allow me.
Initially it was not even allowing me to see the contents of folders
but I just shared the folder and it let me see the contents but there
are still few folders it is not letting me share them. So I cannot
see the contents and even I cannot run those programs installed on
those directories.
I have the Admin rights on the computer.

Thanks

Muhammed Asif
Click to expand...

Shares??? You mean you're talking about networked folders? It changes
nothing I've siad, but indicates a whole new set of possibilities for the
source of a problem. Othewise Shares have nothign to do with anything on
the local drive.

Pop`
 
Poprivet said:
That will fail; you cannot change the read only on a folder.
Click to expand...

Yes you can (assuming you have appropriate permissions).
It has no impact on the files or even how they execute.
Click to expand...

True. The only thing the read-only flag does on a folder is prevent you from
removing it.

Harry.
 
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