Win7 permissions and their annoying effect

[Krusty]

Background:

Win7 x64 installed on C:
Most of my software, personal files, etc, on E: (secondary drive, 1 TB)
UAC or whatever it's called is turned all the way off since I installed Win7 from the start.


I was trying to install and run something lately, a mod loader for another game. It gave me this "you don't have permission" error for accessing some key files, and yes I was running it as administrator.

So a mini-war was started by me against the stupid Win7 permissions on my E: drive. I'd run into it a number of times before trying to remove directories or files and being told I could not. Right clicking and "taking ownership" often fixed it.

Anyways, I messed some of them up in an attempt to take ownership of everything on the drive. It's the MOST stupid and shoddily-organized system Microsoft has come up with since... well since Windows ME. Not only is it confusing, it just doesn't work. I ended up messing some of it up (recycle bin and swap file on this drive need system access) and then did my best to revert to normal.

I tried to set the levels at the E: drive level and tell it to apply to all files and folders on this drive. Only it doesn't work, and 90% of the directories in my E:\*.* have these little padlock icons near them. I went through and one by one (dear GOD MS sucks for this!) had to set security on every one. After that it seems mostly back to normal. Only those directories directly in the root of E:\ have the padlock icon still. Not files inside them or sub folders, just thost first-tier directories.

Stupid stuff:

- It really sucks that these settings don't seem to stay. I set them, and my mod loader in another game worked fine until I exited, and tried to launch it again. It now crashes constantly because of permissions errors. This was the 4th time it worked then didn't work. Seems to work after I spend 30 minutes f@$*ing with the permissions on the drive then only lasts so long.

- You would THINK setting something at the E:\ drive level and saying "use these settings for all files and subfolders" would propogate to the entire drive, right? Wrong!

- You cannot multi-click directories or files or archives and set security for all fo them because MS is retarded in their multi-file-selection properties tabs.

- This is the first time I've really run into this BS from MS. I am the only user on my PC. I want full freaking access to all parts of my drives, any time I want whenever I want. I want a way to run the permissions like XP did.



So how do I go about getting rid of this stupid permissions headache? It works... my Win7 install is on C:\ so everything is still tip-top as far as stability and system integrity. It's just ticking me off.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

- You would THINK setting something at the E:\ drive level and saying "use these settings for all files and subfolders" would propogate to the entire drive, right? Wrong!

You mean something like this:  

On the owner tab you can take ownership of all subfolders and files, then on top level you reset permissions as you wish and it will propagate to child objects.

If it won't do that you've either messed up your system big time or you have somekind of malware that's playing with your permissions.
 

[Krusty]

I did that. It doesn't work like you think it should.

Trust me I spent about an hour or so screwing around with it.

No, I have no malware no viruses, it's a relatively clean setup (relatively) and it's only a few months old. Not much junk in the registry either.

It's just Microsoft screwing stuff up needlessly. Apparently it's a leftover feature of Vista (*shudder*) that was retained in Win7, from reading the InterWebz.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

I did that. It doesn't work like you think it should.

Trust me I spent about an hour or so screwing around with it.

No, I have no malware no viruses, it's a relatively clean setup (relatively) and it's only a few months old. Not much junk in the registry either.

It's just Microsoft screwing stuff up needlessly. Apparently it's a leftover feature of Vista (*shudder*) that was retained in Win7, from reading the InterWebz.

Trust me, it's not Microsofts fault or me and a couple hundred million other users would have already run to the same problem

Did you transfer your E drive from an older computer and/or did it have files leftover from older OS? In those cases permission problems are common and no, they're not MS:s fault.

Edit: You said Vista? I might have to take that a bit back, it almost counts as malware

[MrRiplEy[H]]

If you're available I'd be happy to take a look at it using a remote support session?

The lock icon is an indication that you've limited the privileges up to a point that only your user can access those files, no other user account.

Edit: If you don't want remote support you can fix your problem simply by taking properties from root level of your E: drive, going to security settings and add read permissions for local user group. Right now your file permissions probably read your named account and administrator/system nothing else. Add users and you're good.

[Krusty]

Sorry, didn't see your reply until now. Thanks for the offer but I think I'll leave it for now.

It's the secondary drive that was also a secondary drive on the previous computer. Only program files etc on it, no windows stuff.

I've read a number of other people online are having problems with the permissions as well. It's not just me. There seems to be enough problems setting permissions, or needing to "take ownership" or needing to "run as administrator" all related to permissions with Win7. I've read these permissions behaviors are leftovers from Win Vista. I didn't switch from Vista in this case, just relating they're part of the evilspawn, and that I loathe them accordingly.

 

[Skuzzy]

The whole permission management scheme in Windows 7 is a convoluted mess.

[Krusty]

Validation! At last! 

[bcadoo]

Are you sure its a file system permission problem and not a registry problem?

Check out SubInACL from Microsoft:
http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=23510