read only files

[river]

i hav a new asus lappy with the main hd drive partitioned in 2 plus recovery
section (as it comes), and 2 external usb hdd in enclosures. am running vista
ultimate, i am the administrator of the system, only user, no guest accounts.
UAC is off.

now my problem is that ALL the drives have turned them selves into "ready
only" and i cannot delete any folders, files or stuff. click on a folder an
check properties, "read only" highlighted.

uncheck it, it comes up with a box asking if i want to change this option,
click yes, goes off, comes back saying i need admin rights to do this. but i
am the admin of the system

as far as i know i havent changed anything.

any thoughts???

thanks in advance

 

[Rick Rogers]

Hi,

Read-only, as an attribute, applies only to files not folders. The attribute
cannot be changed because it doesn't actually exist even though it appears
to. It's appearance happens as a side affect of customizing a folder. This
is a known quirk that happens in XP as well.

Whether or not a file is read-only has no bearing on whether or not you can
delete it. That would be a permissions issue.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

 

[Synapse Syndrome]

Read-only, as an attribute, applies only to files not folders. The
attribute cannot be changed because it doesn't actually exist even though
it appears to.

Not sure what you mean there, as the ATTRIB command works on folders, and
you even need the read-only attribute set on User Shell Folders for their
icons to display.

It's appearance happens as a side affect of customizing a folder. This is
a known quirk that happens in XP as well.

Do you mean the grey tick? I thought the explanation for that was that it
just means that the folder may or may not contain read-only files (it does
not know, as finding out could take ages which deep hierarchies). Well,
that's what I have thought for nearly a decade, and it seems to fit
perfectly.

ss.

 

[Rick Rogers]

Hi,

I find this article to be the best explanation of why it's there:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/256614

Shell folders are unique in how they function and, as you stated, are
handled differently by the OS.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

 

[river]

Whether or not a file is read-only has no bearing on whether or not you can
delete it. That would be a permissions issue.

--

OK then how do i setup 'permissions' to all the drives/folders connected to
my comp?

thanks

alan

 

[Rick Rogers]

Edit permissions on the security tab of the root folder's properties.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

 

[Mike]

Edit permissions on the security tab of the root folder's properties.

Hi, I have the same problem, however Vista Ultimate 64 SP1 will change
on reboot so a whole drive as seen in Logical Disk Manager is Read Only.
Shut down, leave it for a while, re-boot and its OK, but now another
physical drive is now read only. It seems to be a random thing, the only
good thing so far is it hasn't affected the physical drive hosting C.

Mike