While dualbooting XP SP2 and Vista RC2 i have an annoying problem.

- "You have been denied permission to access this folder."
- "Photo Gallery can't open this picture because you do not have permission
to access the file location."
- "Cannot open file.xxx"
All these happen when i am trying to create, download, install or whatever
in XP and open the files in Vista.

I know I can change the ownership, file permission in security tab, but i
CANNOT give permission to multiple files in Vista at once (but it is possible
in XP). UAC is off. I honestly don't want to edit every single file
permission by myself.

So i am asking if anyone has the same problem in working with both OS or if
theres any solution of how i can fix this?

Hello,

The solution is NOT to change ownership; rather, you need to add a
permission in Vista via the security tab to the folder where these files
resides that gives your username read/write access. The permission applied
to the folder will automatically apply to all the files that you created
inside of that folder.


--
- JB

Windows Vista Support Faq
http://www.jimmah.com/vista/

when i first try just to add permission it says i am not authorized to access
the file. because i do not own it. and in the ownership tab it says 'unable
to determine ownership', thats why i ave to set ownership first before
adding a permissions for everything.

and no, it does not work either, when i try to allow access a folder
including their subfolders and files at once. i will get 'permission denied'
for all the folders and files inside it. thats why i have to change every
single file by myself.

when i first try just to add permission it says i am not authorized to
access
the file. because i do not own it. and in the ownership tab it says
'unable
to determine ownership', thats why i ave to set ownership first before
adding a permissions for everything.

Just to make sure we are on the same page - you are attempting to modify
security on files that you created from another OS, and not system files?
Have you modified the permissions on these files from the other OS? This
behavior should only occur if Administrators are not allowed to edit
permissions on the file, which shouldn't happen.

and no, it does not work either, when i try to allow access a folder
including their subfolders and files at once. i will get 'permission
denied'
for all the folders and files inside it. thats why i have to change every
single file by myself.

Sounds like your files are set up so that administrators have no access to
them. Your best bet is to use the takeown command-line tool to work your way
through the folder tree. Make sure you give the administrators group
ownership of the files and not your specific username in Vista, as this will
decrease the chance of having problems accessing the files outside of Vista.

Once you have ownership of all the files, you should be able to change the
permissions at the top-level folders and they should propogate correctly.

You will need to use an elevated command prompt in order to use the takeown
command-line utility. Right-click command prompt in the start menu and click
Run As Administrator.

Example command-line:

takeown /F . /A /R

Will take ownership of everything inside of the current folder, including
all nested subfolders and files, and assign the owner to the administrators
group.


--
- JB

Windows Vista Support Faq
http://www.jimmah.com/vista/

I have the same problem. I installed Vista on a new partition. It can access
all the XP files and folders in other drives but they are all read only. I
changed ownership to mymachine\administrators for all the files & folders in
those drives. That did not fix the issue.

I noticed that all folders and files have read only attribute. I reset the
attribute for all of them but as soon as I click OK to click the dialog box
and go back to check it, I see that they still have Readonly attribute.

Hello,

snip
I have the same problem. I installed Vista on a new partition. It can access
all the XP files and folders in other drives but they are all read only. I
changed ownership to mymachine\administrators for all the files & folders in
those drives. That did not fix the issue.

Changing ownership does Not give you access to the files. Changing ownership
only allows you to edit permissions on the files. The reason I recommended to
the OP here to change ownership was because he could not change the
permissions any other way.

Changing ownership on files is not recommened unless you are having problems
changing permissions.

You still must give yourself permission to access those files in Vista. Find
the folder that contains the files you need access to (such as My Documents,
My Pictures, or a folder that you created) This will not work on system
folders such as Windows or Documents and Settings.

- Open an explorer window
- Find the folder you need access to
- Right-click it
- Click Properties
- Click the Security Tab
- Click Edit
- Click Add
- Type your username and press enter.
- Click the checkbox under Allow next to Full Control
- Click OK
- Click OK

- JB

Thanks Jimmy. I did not have time to look at the issue deeper before posting.
I guess many people will have this situation and may be puzzled by the fact
that although their user account is added to "administrators" group by
default and administrators group has full access to all files and folders in
their systems, they will still see "access denied"...

I am not sure if this partly because users who are part of administrators
groups are not in fact regular users most of the time and automagically
become admins when there is a need for elevated rights. It has the same idea
implemented at Ubuntu but does not ask for password by default (could be
modified to do so editing secpol.msc)

Anyway that's not related to the issue. To resolve my problem, I've created
a local group and added both my account and my wife's account to it. As
simply adding this group at the drive level would not help and I needed to
force it down so that all the changes are inherited,
* I made the new group owner of all files and folders
* In the drive securities dialog box, added the new group and granted Full
rights
* In the same dialog box Clicked Edit Advanced and checked "Replace all
existing inheritable permissions on all descendants with inheritable
permissions from this object"
* Logged off, logged back in & there I got full access to all my XP drives...

"Jimmy Brush" wrote:

Hello,

snip
I have the same problem. I installed Vista on a new partition. It can access
all the XP files and folders in other drives but they are all read only. I
changed ownership to mymachine\administrators for all the files & folders in
those drives. That did not fix the issue.

Changing ownership does Not give you access to the files. Changing ownership
only allows you to edit permissions on the files. The reason I recommended to
the OP here to change ownership was because he could not change the
permissions any other way.

Changing ownership on files is not recommened unless you are having problems
changing permissions.

You still must give yourself permission to access those files in Vista. Find
the folder that contains the files you need access to (such as My Documents,
My Pictures, or a folder that you created) This will not work on system
folders such as Windows or Documents and Settings.

- Open an explorer window
- Find the folder you need access to
- Right-click it
- Click Properties
- Click the Security Tab
- Click Edit
- Click Add
- Type your username and press enter.
- Click the checkbox under Allow next to Full Control
- Click OK
- Click OK

- JB

As
simply adding this group at the drive level would not help and I needed to
force it down so that all the changes are inherited,

It would have been better to have modified the permissions of the folders
that directly contain the files you need access to by adding a single
permission entry granting access to your specific username in vista. This
would not have required any advanced "forcing" options, as the files inside
the folder would automatically inherit the permissions of their parent
folder.

Changing permissions on a drive and then forcing propogation is generally
considered a bad idea. You are wanting to ADD permissions to files/folders
while leaving the default security in place; this is a destructive operation
that replaces permissions, weaking the security of your system and possibly
causing undesirable side effects.

* I made the new group owner of all files and folders

This may cause some problems if you boot back into XP - its generally best
to leave ownership alone, unless there is no other way to change the
permissions you wish to change.

Regardless, I'm glad you got it working


--
- JB

Windows Vista Support Faq
http://www.jimmah.com/vista/

It would have been better to have modified the permissions of the folders
that directly contain the files you need access to by adding a single
permission entry granting access to YOUR SPECIFIC USERNAME in vista.

Replace YOUR SPECIFIC USERNAME here with the user group you created.


--
- JB

Windows Vista Support Faq
http://www.jimmah.com/vista/

I have replied to you twice but I found myself back on this screen and my
answer was gone. I am trying one last time...

The reason I forced it down was because the new group I added was not
inherited by the files & folders below.

XP on the other hand worked just find although naturally could not enumerate
the new group. So both are happy now.

"Jimmy Brush" wrote:

It would have been better to have modified the permissions of the folders
that directly contain the files you need access to by adding a single
permission entry granting access to YOUR SPECIFIC USERNAME in vista.

Replace YOUR SPECIFIC USERNAME here with the user group you created.


--
- JB

Windows Vista Support Faq
http://www.jimmah.com/vista/