Read-Only propety keeps going back on after de-selecting

[Guest]

I have made a copy on my new windows Vista Home Premium machine from a Lacie
NAS device of a directory which was originally created on an XP machine by
iTunes, it's all my music basically.

Due to a screw up I now have two instances of the directory. I would like
to delete one of them.

All directories and files have their Read-only property set. so I select the
main directory and click on the read only box which clears. I then get a
dialog which asks do I want to apply this change to all directories and files
contained in this directory. The action appears to take place but when I
right click on properties again there it is! Read-Only is selected again!

Please help. It is driving me mad!

 

[Kerry Brown]

Are the actual files read only or just the folders. It is normal for folders
to show as read only. The OS ignores this. If it's the files them selves
then there's a different problem. Try deleting one file. If it doesn't work
post the details of what happened.

 

[Guest]

Hi Kerry,
Curiouser and Curiouser. Individual files and the last level of directories
can be deleted. not the higher levels of directory.

My tree to one particular file goes
Documents/From old PC/itunes/Air/moon safari/Files
in this one files can be deleted
another is
Documents/From old PC/itunes/Billy connelly/big night out/Files in which
both files and the directory big night out can be deleted.

In niether case can the other directories be deleted.

I have just remembered that I actually created this problem when I changed
jobs 15 months ago and moved data to my new laptop (w2000 to XP) and managed
to end up with two directories. The fact that appear to be two different
levels of problem as discribed above could be attributable to me having
merged the results so there is now one set of data exhibiting the same
problem but to different degrees!

 

[Guest]

Kerry,
I just found a tick box deep in the properties dialog (of the iTunes
directory) (security/advanced/edit) that says "include inheritable
permissions from this objects parent" It sounds like it should help to untick
it but it would be nice to know before i did so???

 

[Kerry Brown]

It sounds like a permissions problem. Go to the top level folder that you
want to delete. On the security tab click on Advanced. Click on Edit. Put a
check in the box beside "Replace owner on subcontainers and objects". Click
on your user account then Apply. Now click on the Permissions tab then Edit.
Take the check out of the box beside "Include inheritable......" and put a
check in box beside "Replace all existing .....". Click on your user
account. Click on Edit. make sure the box beside "Full control" is checked.
Make sure the box Apply the permissions ...... this container only" is not
checked. Click on OK.

You should now be able to delete this folder and all the folders below it.
During the above UAC must be turned on. You will get several UAC prompts. If
UAC is off the procedure will not work.

 

[Guest]

Hi Kerry,
I followed this procedure and it all looked like it had worked. I tried
several times to make sure i got it right. Same result i am afraid! I think
you are right, it's some kind of weird permissions issue.
Because of the common difficulty in moving permissions between file systems
coherently I am wondering if the Lacie drive has chopped or added some extra
data to each files metadata which can't be seen or understood by Vista.
I just remembered I didn't have the Lacie drive when i moved the original
data a year ago. At that time the data was moved by copying to a Snap NAS
drive and then copied off to the new Win XP system.

I've tried searching for similar problems associated with both these drives
but there isn't anything that looks simialar

 

[Kerry Brown]

When you check the Security tab on a file that you can't delete do you show
up as the owner with full control?

 

[Guest]

Kerry,
I'm not sure what happened but this evening I was able to delete all the
directories and files without taking any further action. Go figure....

Thank you for your help. I will recommend you for medals and sashes should
the opportunity ever arise!

Roland

 

[Kerry Brown]

You're welcome. Glad to hear you finally got it solved.