Help: accidentally selected "Make my files private"; need to reverse it?

[Kevin Sidell]

Hi. Yesterday, I was performing a "clean install" of WinXP and
everything went fine until I went to reinstall the backups of my old
files. Apparently, I had selected an option when creating my user
profile called "make my files private" which was to prevent other
prying users from checking out my stuff.

This cause a little problem, however.

When I tried to reinstall items from my backup into obscure files
(i.e. like "local settings") I wsa told I didn't have permission to do
so and the files became locked and "unmovable" out of the directory
they were restored to. I get errors like "Access Is Denied" and the
files are otherwise unusable. I believe the root cause of this is the
"privacy" issue but I'm not sure.

Is there a way to reverse this? Has anyone experienced this before?
Help!

(p.s. I also tried to change the permissions of the directory to no
avail)

Kevin Sidell

[Peter Hutchison]

On 18 Aug 2003 11:04:20 -0700, (Kevin Sidell) wrote:

>Hi. Yesterday, I was performing a "clean install" of WinXP and
>everything went fine until I went to reinstall the backups of my old
>files. Apparently, I had selected an option when creating my user
>profile called "make my files private" which was to prevent other
>prying users from checking out my stuff.
>
>This cause a little problem, however.
>
>When I tried to reinstall items from my backup into obscure files
>(i.e. like "local settings") I wsa told I didn't have permission to do
>so and the files became locked and "unmovable" out of the directory
>they were restored to. I get errors like "Access Is Denied" and the
>files are otherwise unusable. I believe the root cause of this is the
>"privacy" issue but I'm not sure.
>
>Is there a way to reverse this? Has anyone experienced this before?
>Help!
>
>(p.s. I also tried to change the permissions of the directory to no
>avail)

Do you have XP Home or XP Pro?
If XP pro. then open Properties of the Folder, click Security, click
Advanced, Owner and select your user as the new Owner.

If you have XP Home, then use CACLS.EXE from a command prompt to
assign yourself full control of the folder
e.g.
CACLS d:\MyDocs /G Kevin:F /T

Will grant user 'Kevin' Full control over folder d:\mydocs (/G) and
subfolders (/T).

Peter Hutchison
Windows FAQ
http://www.pcguru.plus.com/