I very foolishly decided to try to protect a folder and its subfolders from
others on my home network, and now I, as administrator of this computer, am
locked out of the folder.
Every time I try to regain access through the Properties/Security window
tabs, I get a message saying:
"An error has occured while applying security information to location name
Access is denied"
I've spent many hours trying every conceivable workaround that I can think
of, nothing works.
I am the system administrator, and the owner of the folders. How can I get
back my access to this data??
Thanks
GeoffS

GeoffS wrote:
I very foolishly decided to try to protect a folder and its subfolders from
others on my home network, and now I, as administrator of this computer, am
locked out of the folder.
Every time I try to regain access through the Properties/Security window
tabs, I get a message saying:
"An error has occured while applying security information to location name
Access is denied"
I've spent many hours trying every conceivable workaround that I can think
of, nothing works.
I am the system administrator, and the owner of the folders. How can I get
back my access to this data??
Thanks
GeoffS

I can think of two ways but of course since I don't know what "every
conceivable workaround" consists of, you may have already tried them.
First, I'd enable the true system Administrator since it is disabled in
Vista by default and then log in as that user. To do this, here is
information from Ron Lowe:

"If you enable the Administrator account ( r-click 'my computer' |
manage | local users and groups | users. Note Administrator will have
a down-arrow icon overlaying it. Dbl-click Administrator, un-check
'disabled', OK your way out ) then you can log on to the Administrator
account by entering "Administrator" or "PC-NAME\Administrator" in the
username box,and leaving the password field blank. ( It will have the
word 'Password' in the password box, but that just indicates to the user
where they ought to type the password. The value 'Password' is not
actually the value contained in the password field. ) Just click on the
blue arrow and you are logged in."

If you can do this, you may now be able to take ownership of the folder
and its subcontainers per:

Check the permissions of the file or folder the file is saved in and
take ownership:

1. Right-click the file or folder, and then click Properties.
2. Click the Security tab.
3. Under Group or user names, click your name to see the permissions you
have.

To open a file, you need to have read permission. For more information
on permissions, see What are permissions?

http://tinyurl.com/2j9vgr

To take ownership of a folder:

1. Right-click the folder that you want to take ownership of, and then
click Properties.
2. Click the Security tab, click Advanced, and then click the Owner tab.
3. Click Edit. Administrator permission required If you are prompted for
an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide
confirmation.
4. Click the name of the person you want to give ownership to.
5. If you want that person to be the owner of files and subfolders in
this folder, select the Replace owner on subcontainers and objects check
box.
6. Click OK

If that doesn't work, then a workaround might be to boot with a live
Linux distro like Knoppix (a live distro runs from CD) and copy the data
to external media since Linux will not honor the Windows permissions.
Then boot back into Windows and see if you can delete the folder and
start over.


Malke
--
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
"Don't Panic!"
MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User

Worked just fine!
Thanks a million!
Geoff
PS loved your Elephant Boy homepage!!

"Malke" wrote:

GeoffS wrote:
I very foolishly decided to try to protect a folder and its subfolders from
others on my home network, and now I, as administrator of this computer, am
locked out of the folder.
Every time I try to regain access through the Properties/Security window
tabs, I get a message saying:
"An error has occured while applying security information to location name
Access is denied"
I've spent many hours trying every conceivable workaround that I can think
of, nothing works.
I am the system administrator, and the owner of the folders. How can I get
back my access to this data??
Thanks
GeoffS

I can think of two ways but of course since I don't know what "every
conceivable workaround" consists of, you may have already tried them.
First, I'd enable the true system Administrator since it is disabled in
Vista by default and then log in as that user. To do this, here is
information from Ron Lowe:

"If you enable the Administrator account ( r-click 'my computer' |
manage | local users and groups | users. Note Administrator will have
a down-arrow icon overlaying it. Dbl-click Administrator, un-check
'disabled', OK your way out ) then you can log on to the Administrator
account by entering "Administrator" or "PC-NAME\Administrator" in the
username box,and leaving the password field blank. ( It will have the
word 'Password' in the password box, but that just indicates to the user
where they ought to type the password. The value 'Password' is not
actually the value contained in the password field. ) Just click on the
blue arrow and you are logged in."

If you can do this, you may now be able to take ownership of the folder
and its subcontainers per:

Check the permissions of the file or folder the file is saved in and
take ownership:

1. Right-click the file or folder, and then click Properties.
2. Click the Security tab.
3. Under Group or user names, click your name to see the permissions you
have.

To open a file, you need to have read permission. For more information
on permissions, see What are permissions?

http://tinyurl.com/2j9vgr

To take ownership of a folder:

1. Right-click the folder that you want to take ownership of, and then
click Properties.
2. Click the Security tab, click Advanced, and then click the Owner tab.
3. Click Edit. Administrator permission required If you are prompted for
an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide
confirmation.
4. Click the name of the person you want to give ownership to.
5. If you want that person to be the owner of files and subfolders in
this folder, select the Replace owner on subcontainers and objects check
box.
6. Click OK

If that doesn't work, then a workaround might be to boot with a live
Linux distro like Knoppix (a live distro runs from CD) and copy the data
to external media since Linux will not honor the Windows permissions.
Then boot back into Windows and see if you can delete the folder and
start over.


Malke
--
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
"Don't Panic!"
MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User

GeoffS wrote:
Worked just fine!
Thanks a million!
Geoff
PS loved your Elephant Boy homepage!!

Glad that sorted it for you. Thanks for the nice words and for taking
the time to let me know.


Malke
--
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
"Don't Panic!"
MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User