I am the only user on my laptop, (vista home premuim) and recently after
downloading a couple of free games from windows market place i was unable to
delete them after realising they were rubbish. I needed permissions
apparantly. Right clicking on the files then selecting properties took me
to permissions where i selected the security tab. As far as i could see,
everything was as it should be. So i am now confused as to why i am unable
to delete these files. I then used a system restore point which seemed to
take me back but another file now wont delete. i shouldnt have to go to a
previous restore point everytime i want rid of files. Please help. TIA
If you got an hour to kill visit the below site which has an hour long
interview with the two guys at Microsoft that wrote UAC and they try
to explain why they did what they did. Even if you just skim through
it most people find it interesting.
http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowForum.aspx?ForumID=14&TagID=9
The video you want is called "UAC, What, how, why".
Two possible fixes.
Easy way: Turn UAC off from Control Panel.
Hard way: If you like to tinker, you were on the right track. Go to
the security tab on EACH of your hard drives except for your root
drive (C), I don't suggest you mess with that since there shouldn't be
anything there but Windows and what it hopes you put there in it's
special folders like My pictures, documents, etc.. which get treated
differently than folder elsewhere on your system.
As far as all your other hard drives try this:
1. Right click on the drive letter in Windows Explorer, properties,
then go to the Security Tab.
2. Under Group or users names locate yourself as a user. For example
if you logged in as Joey, you should see Joey listed, perhaps under
any name you may have also assigned your computer, so if you did
that when you installed Vista, you may have (main\Joey) assuming
you named your computer main.
3. Select Joey then click the EDIT button. Obviously you substitute
the actual name you log in as a user.
4. Now you should have full permissions for the drive meaning
EVERYTHING, Full Control, Modify, Read & Execute, List Folder
Contents and Read are all checked, nothing grayed out. If you
don't see this then check those that are missing and be sure
to remember to click APPLY then OK.
In theory at least you (Joey or whatever name you're using) should
now have full permission to do whatever on every file on the hard
drive you just changed. Repeat for all your other hard drives except
for C. Don't change that one! Not recommended.
Now real world sometimes some folders or files within some folder hold
onto their ownership which might be assigned to something else other
than you OR if Vista considers what you want to do a security risk you
still may see the UAC prompt but you should be able to click through
it.
A bonus of doing this is file transfer should for most under many
conditions will also be faster since Vista shouldn't have to sniff in
each file worrying like a nanny over permissions. That is one of the
things Vista is doing when you see the goofy "calculating time"
message in Windows Explorer.
