Permissions on Nework Drive Take Forever

[CentralTexas]

I have full control of a folder on a large nework drive. I give new people
permission by using explorer and right clicking on the folder name and going
to the security tab. When I click OK or Apply, I get the hour glass and it
may take as long as 45 minutes before the hour glass goes away and the
changes take effect.

Surely, there is a more efficient way to do this, isn't there? Can it be
done in the Command Window (MS DOS) or something. This is about the drive me
up the wall. When I call my help desk about this issue, they say it is
because the drive has so many files and so many users and they shrug their
shoulders (metaphorically speaking). The drive has thousands of folders used
by other people, but I am just interested in my folder. We use XP Pro Sp3.

What is the process that windows is doing that takes so long? Is it having
to tag every file in the folder, or what?

Can anyone help?

 

[Jim]

I have full control of a folder on a large nework drive. I give new people
permission by using explorer and right clicking on the folder name and
going
to the security tab. When I click OK or Apply, I get the hour glass and
it
may take as long as 45 minutes before the hour glass goes away and the
changes take effect.

Surely, there is a more efficient way to do this, isn't there? Can it be
done in the Command Window (MS DOS) or something. This is about the drive
me
up the wall. When I call my help desk about this issue, they say it is
because the drive has so many files and so many users and they shrug their
shoulders (metaphorically speaking). The drive has thousands of folders
used
by other people, but I am just interested in my folder. We use XP Pro
Sp3.

What is the process that windows is doing that takes so long? Is it
having
to tag every file in the folder, or what?

Can anyone help?

Yes, it must tag every file in the folder. And, depending on what else is
happening to the drive, it can take a long time for this process to end.

Jim

 

[John John (MVP)]

You must have quite a pile of files in there! You can set the
permissions with the CACLS command and it seems to go a bit faster...
maybe that is just because you see something going on (all the files
scroll by) when the Cacls command is applying the ACLs.

A very simple solution to your problem is to give "Everyone" permission
to your folder but that is not so secure so it may not be desirable for
you. If the "Everyone" option is not acceptable create a new group just
for the users that you want to give access to your files and give the
permission to your folder to the Group instead of individual users, just
add your Users to your special group and they will have the group
permission to access your files, you will not need to redo the ACL every
time a new user needs to access the files.

John

 

[CentralTexas]

Yeah, it is too big. The root folder has 109 Gb or ~36,000 files.

Thanks for the help.

Sid

 

[John John (MVP)]

Something doesn't quite sound right. I did tests on Windows 2000 on a
folder that holds a dozen sub folders and about 170,000 files, and while
I didn't time it, with the Cacls command it took about 5 minutes,
certainly no more than 10 minutes. With the GUI ACL tool it did seem to
take more time but it certainly didn't take anywheres near 45 minutes!
My drive is smaller than yours (80GB) and the 170,000 files only
occupy about 15GB but the size of the drive or size of the files and
folders should not make any difference as the ACLs are kept in the NTFS
metadata, there is no need to go through the whole disk when ACLs are
added or modified. Maybe one of your security applications might be
slowing down the process.

John