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#1
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Universal Folder Access?
How do I easily get complete and unrestricted folder and file access to ALL
folders and files in Win 7? I've even tried using NT6 Restriction Fix, and that doesn't free them from the "access denied", but it's supposed to. Here is the URL: https://www.jsware.net/jsware/nt6fix.php5 One thing I think seemed to work is granting FULL permission to the "Everyone" group (for each subfolder you want access to, by right mouse clicking), but I would think as Administrator (which I am, since this is a home PC), that should be enough for everything, but clearly I'm missing something. Plus having to do this manually for each subfolder via the Everyone group (when it is present), is a PIA. Ideally I would like *simply* to grant FULL control for C: and every folder/subfolder/file underneath it, since I'm the only user here, but I haven't as yet found a way to do that in one step. Just like it used to be in XP, pretty much. (Clicking on subfolders such as Cookies or App Data gets "access denied", just for some simple examples) |
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#3
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Universal Folder Access?
On 24-8-2018 0:26, Bill in Co wrote:
How do I easily get complete and unrestricted folder and file access to ALL folders and files in Win 7? I've even tried using NT6 Restriction Fix, and that doesn't free them from the "access denied", but it's supposed to. Here is the URL: https://www.jsware.net/jsware/nt6fix.php5 One thing I think seemed to work is granting FULL permission to the "Everyone" group (for each subfolder you want access to, by right mouse clicking), but I would think as Administrator (which I am, since this is a home PC), that should be enough for everything, but clearly I'm missing something. Plus having to do this manually for each subfolder via the Everyone group (when it is present), is a PIA. Ideally I would like *simply* to grant FULL control for C: and every folder/subfolder/file underneath it, since I'm the only user here, but I haven't as yet found a way to do that in one step. Just like it used to be in XP, pretty much. (Clicking on subfolders such as Cookies or App Data gets "access denied", just for some simple examples) Activate an administrator account On this newsgroup I saved the protocol for that Quoting: ------------------------------------------------------------- Enable the (Hidden) Administrator Account on Windows 7, 8, or 10 Many people familiar with prior versions of Windows are curious what happened to the built-in Administrator account that was always created by default. Does this account still exist, and how can you access it? The account is created in Windows 10, 8, 7, or Vista, but since it’s not enabled you can’t use it. If you are troubleshooting something that needs to run as administrator, you can enable it with a simple command. Note: You really shouldn’t use this account for anything other than troubleshooting. In fact, you probably shouldn’t use it at all. Enable Built-in Administrator Account in Windows First you’ll need to open a command prompt in administrator mode by right-clicking and choosing “Run as administrator” (or use the Ctrl+Shift+Enter shortcut from the search box). Note that this works the same in all versions of Windows. Just search for cmd and then right-click on the command prompt icon in the Start menu or Start screen. If you are in Windows 8.x or 10 you can right-click on the Start button and choose to open a command prompt that way. Now type the following command: net user administrator /active:yes You should see a message that the command completed successfully. Log out, and you’ll now see the Administrator account as a choice. |
#4
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Universal Folder Access?
Bill in Co wrote:
How do I easily get complete and unrestricted folder and file access to ALL folders and files in Win 7? I've even tried using NT6 Restriction Fix, and that doesn't free them from the "access denied", but it's supposed to. Here is the URL: https://www.jsware.net/jsware/nt6fix.php5 One thing I think seemed to work is granting FULL permission to the "Everyone" group (for each subfolder you want access to, by right mouse clicking), but I would think as Administrator (which I am, since this is a home PC), that should be enough for everything, but clearly I'm missing something. Plus having to do this manually for each subfolder via the Everyone group (when it is present), is a PIA. Ideally I would like *simply* to grant FULL control for C: and every folder/subfolder/file underneath it, since I'm the only user here, but I haven't as yet found a way to do that in one step. Just like it used to be in XP, pretty much. (Clicking on subfolders such as Cookies or App Data gets "access denied", just for some simple examples) Now, I like that page above, because it's easy to test. 1) In Computer, do Properties on C: You will see a circular chart showing used and free space. 2) Now, go down to WinSXS and measure it. It says 6GB or some large amount. Take careful note now! We want to balance our books, and need a precise figure. 3) Delete the contents of WinSXS. This will take a while. If you need inspiration, use psexec64 to help you in your daring mission. Maybe the SYSTEM account has sufficient permission. 4) Now, in Computer, go back to the circular chart. Notice that the space used, has hardly changed at all. The size used is now 500MB smaller, not 6GB smaller. Discuss and explain your findings, using Windows 98 terminology. How can there be an unaccounted-for 5.5GB difference ? (Substitute your measured numbers of course. This is science.) Paul |
#5
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Universal Folder Access?
Sjouke Burry wrote:
On 24-8-2018 0:26, Bill in Co wrote: How do I easily get complete and unrestricted folder and file access to ALL folders and files in Win 7? I've even tried using NT6 Restriction Fix, and that doesn't free them from the "access denied", but it's supposed to. Here is the URL: https://www.jsware.net/jsware/nt6fix.php5 One thing I think seemed to work is granting FULL permission to the "Everyone" group (for each subfolder you want access to, by right mouse clicking), but I would think as Administrator (which I am, since this is a home PC), that should be enough for everything, but clearly I'm missing something. Plus having to do this manually for each subfolder via the Everyone group (when it is present), is a PIA. Ideally I would like *simply* to grant FULL control for C: and every folder/subfolder/file underneath it, since I'm the only user here, but I haven't as yet found a way to do that in one step. Just like it used to be in XP, pretty much. (Clicking on subfolders such as Cookies or App Data gets "access denied", just for some simple examples) Activate an administrator account On this newsgroup I saved the protocol for that Quoting: ------------------------------------------------------------- Enable the (Hidden) Administrator Account on Windows 7, 8, or 10 Many people familiar with prior versions of Windows are curious what happened to the built-in Administrator account that was always created by default. Does this account still exist, and how can you access it? The account is created in Windows 10, 8, 7, or Vista, but since it’s not enabled you can’t use it. If you are troubleshooting something that needs to run as administrator, you can enable it with a simple command. Note: You really shouldn’t use this account for anything other than troubleshooting. In fact, you probably shouldn’t use it at all. Enable Built-in Administrator Account in Windows First you’ll need to open a command prompt in administrator mode by right-clicking and choosing “Run as administrator” (or use the Ctrl+Shift+Enter shortcut from the search box). Note that this works the same in all versions of Windows. Just search for cmd and then right-click on the command prompt icon in the Start menu or Start screen. If you are in Windows 8.x or 10 you can right-click on the Start button and choose to open a command prompt that way. Now type the following command: net user administrator /active:yes You should see a message that the command completed successfully. Log out, and you’ll now see the Administrator account as a choice. I tried that, and it works, as one workaround, but as you said, probably not the most desireable one. So I guess I should have been more accurate in what I wanted, as I really don't want or need that yet (having that Adminstrator account, per se), but simply need more access within my own user "Owner" account, at least to MOST of the folders underneath it, including (primarily) Application Data, and the like. Is the only option then to edit the Everyone account to allow FULL access to that subfolder, and any others? |
#6
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Universal Folder Access?
On 24-8-2018 1:18, Bill in Co wrote:
Sjouke Burry wrote: On 24-8-2018 0:26, Bill in Co wrote: How do I easily get complete and unrestricted folder and file access to ALL folders and files in Win 7? I've even tried using NT6 Restriction Fix, and that doesn't free them from the "access denied", but it's supposed to. Here is the URL: https://www.jsware.net/jsware/nt6fix.php5 One thing I think seemed to work is granting FULL permission to the "Everyone" group (for each subfolder you want access to, by right mouse clicking), but I would think as Administrator (which I am, since this is a home PC), that should be enough for everything, but clearly I'm missing something. Plus having to do this manually for each subfolder via the Everyone group (when it is present), is a PIA. Ideally I would like *simply* to grant FULL control for C: and every folder/subfolder/file underneath it, since I'm the only user here, but I haven't as yet found a way to do that in one step. Just like it used to be in XP, pretty much. (Clicking on subfolders such as Cookies or App Data gets "access denied", just for some simple examples) Activate an administrator account On this newsgroup I saved the protocol for that Quoting: ------------------------------------------------------------- Enable the (Hidden) Administrator Account on Windows 7, 8, or 10 Many people familiar with prior versions of Windows are curious what happened to the built-in Administrator account that was always created by default. Does this account still exist, and how can you access it? The account is created in Windows 10, 8, 7, or Vista, but since it’s not enabled you can’t use it. If you are troubleshooting something that needs to run as administrator, you can enable it with a simple command. Note: You really shouldn’t use this account for anything other than troubleshooting. In fact, you probably shouldn’t use it at all. Enable Built-in Administrator Account in Windows First you’ll need to open a command prompt in administrator mode by right-clicking and choosing “Run as administrator” (or use the Ctrl+Shift+Enter shortcut from the search box). Note that this works the same in all versions of Windows. Just search for cmd and then right-click on the command prompt icon in the Start menu or Start screen. If you are in Windows 8.x or 10 you can right-click on the Start button and choose to open a command prompt that way. Now type the following command: net user administrator /active:yes You should see a message that the command completed successfully. Log out, and you’ll now see the Administrator account as a choice. I tried that, and it works, as one workaround, but as you said, probably not the most desireable one. So I guess I should have been more accurate in what I wanted, as I really don't want or need that yet (having that Adminstrator account, per se), but simply need more access within my own user "Owner" account, at least to MOST of the folders underneath it, including (primarily) Application Data, and the like. Is the only option then to edit the Everyone account to allow FULL access to that subfolder, and any others? The only extra info I have, is that the admin account has a higher permission level then you , or you as ("run as administrator"). |
#7
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Universal Folder Access?
"Bill in Co" wrote
| https://www.jsware.net/jsware/nt6fix.php5 | Be sure you run it as admin. Did you look at the help file? This may be relevant: If you want to remove restrictions for all Users that is normally only possible if you, yourself have created the item in question. And if you try to take ownership in order to remove restrictions for all users it will fail. To get around that limitation, first remove restrictions for all Administrators, which will give you ownership of the item. Then, in a second operation, remove restrictions for all Users. That should work in most or all cases, even with system files. |
#8
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Universal Folder Access?
Wolf K wrote:
On 2018-08-23 19:18, Bill in Co wrote: So I guess I should have been more accurate in what I wanted, as I really don't want or need that yet (having that Adminstrator account, per se), but simply need more access within my own user "Owner" account, at least to MOST of the folders underneath it, including (primarily) Application Data, and the like. That's what I thought, thanks for clarifying your intent. Is the only option then to edit the Everyone account to allow FULL access to that subfolder, and any others? No, in fact I'd advise against it. By "access to a folder" I surmise you mean "Can read any file in that folder". This will do it: Control Panel - Folder Options - View tab a) click on Show Hidden Files .... b) untick Hide Protected operating system files... a) will reveal Application Data etc. b) will show just about everything else, so be careful. If by "full access" you mean write as well read permission, that's different. Right-click on folder (or file) name - click on Properties - check the Attributes and toggle as needed. Note that this does not work for all files, for good reason. However, I would advise against making any system file writable, and make sure you know what's what if you want to modify an Application Data file. The above applies to any account set up with Administrator privileges. That includes the default "owner" account you create when you initially set up the system. Running as "real administrator" (as decsribed in other posts) means you can set/unset a lot more stuff than as Owner, even though Owner by default is an administrator account. I would not allow any of the other accounts full uncontrolled access to anything other than data files they create with the programs you've allowed them to run. OK, maybe this will help clarify. I've already unticked the hide protected files, etc, so let me explain this further. I am trying to look at the contents of \Users\Owner\Application Data in Windows Explorer. Under the C:\Users\Owner account (me), in Windows Explorer, I find this, when I right mouse click on: C:\Users\Owner\Application Data: (to see the permissions): Group or User Names: Everyone (note: the allow or deny permissions are blank - thus not allowed) SYSTEM (shows full control privileges) Owner (Owner-PC\Owner) (shows full control privileges) Administators (Owner-PC\Administrators) (shows full control privileges) So just the three above have FULL control permission (not EVERYONE, though) And if I simply mouse click on Owner\Application Data, I get "the folder is not accessible" and "Access is Denied", with a beep, so I can't read what is in that folder. However, if and only if I edit the Everyone group to have FULL control privileges, THEN I can see all the subfolders underneath Application Data. So short of giving full control permission to the last folder ("Everyone"), I don't see a solution. And I should be able to see the Application Data folder, as it often contains some relevant program configuration information. |
#9
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Universal Folder Access?
On 23/08/2018 23:26, Bill in Co wrote:
How do I easily get complete and unrestricted folder and file access to ALL folders and files in Win 7? Never allow Everyone any sort of access on a computer, except possibly a Public folder which doesn't contain anything important. In general, use Authenticated Users instead, which limits access to those with an enabled user account on the machine. Be aware that, in Vista+, the so-called 'admin' account is actually a user account with privileges that can be elevated to perform minor admin tasks, it's not the actual Administrator account per se which is disabled by default. One of the first things I do in a new W7 installation is enable the real Administrator account, but even that is not enough ... Many parts of the file system and registry are no longer owned by the Administrators group, but by other users or groups such as Trusted Installer, Network Service, etc. Effectively with Vista+, when signed on as a normal user running elevated privileges, you are just a first-level support lackey, and even when signed on as the Administrator, you are merely a second-level support lackey, the true Administrator of the computer is Microsoft. If you try and take matters into your own hands by using the GUI to give the Administrators group permissions on an important directory or registry key and then replicating these permissions down the entire tree which *replaces*, rather than adds to, existing permissions, things can stop working. This outrageous situation causes many, many problems to would-be customisers of Vista+ versions of Windows. You have just encountered one. Try the following: 1) Depending on where you want to obtain permissions, before doing anything else, you may wish to back up the entire system disk using Ghost or equivalent disk cloning/imaging program, so that you know that, if things foul up, you've got an easy escape. 2) As suggested by others, enable the Administrator account (AFAICR you may have to use a similar command just before or after the one given here to set the password) ... http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windo...windows-vista/ 3) Sign on as Administrator 4) Open a command prompt 5) Enter the appropriate one of ... TAKEOWN /D Y /R /F root directory of heirarchy .... to give current user (Administrator) ownership ... TAKEOWN /D Y /R /F root directory of heirarchy /A .... to give the Administrators group ownership ... TAKEOWN /D Y /R /F root of heirarchy /U user /P pass .... to give a specific user ownership. Probably the second example is what you want, but for other possibilities see TAKEOWN /?. Note that, due to the idiotic circular links in some places in the folder heirarchy, for example Application Data, this will produce longer and longer messages until erroring, but don't interrupt it - my recollection is that whenever it encounters a circular reference the command will continue going round the circle until it runs out of stack space, print an error message, and then continue with the next directory entry. 6) Enter ... ICACLS /C /L /Q /T /grant User or SID:F for full control .... again the /C & /L are required because of the circular links, and again see ICACLS /? for further possibilities, but never use the :r (replace permissions) option unless it's a very unimportant part of the system or unless you really, really know what you're doing. In summary, Step 5 gives ownership of the entire heirarchy to, preferably, the Administrators group, thus allowing you, either as now signed on as Administrator or later using raised privileges as a normal user, to perform step 6 which is what you really want, the granting of full access to an appropriate user. |
#10
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Universal Folder Access?
Java Jive wrote:
On 23/08/2018 23:26, Bill in Co wrote: How do I easily get complete and unrestricted folder and file access to ALL folders and files in Win 7? Never allow Everyone any sort of access on a computer, except possibly a Public folder which doesn't contain anything important. In general, use Authenticated Users instead, which limits access to those with an enabled user account on the machine. Be aware that, in Vista+, the so-called 'admin' account is actually a user account with privileges that can be elevated to perform minor admin tasks, it's not the actual Administrator account per se which is disabled by default. One of the first things I do in a new W7 installation is enable the real Administrator account, but even that is not enough ... What is the difference between an account belonging to Administrator group, and the "real" Administrator account ? I've been unable to spot a difference using whoami /user /priv. The main value of both accounts, is the Impersonate privilege. ******* The circular reference caused by the junction points (maybe 62 of them on a typical icacls run over C:\), is probably hitting the max_path_length. If you need an exact answer on a given OS, you could use Process Monitor while icacls is running, and capture the path probes as they happen. There is a mythical option to increase the max_path_length on Windows 10, but it may not be enabled by default. Robocopy has the same problem with Junction Points as icacls, but it has a command line option to "step over" those. Not that I recommend Robocopy for "cloning C:\". On Windows 10, cloning C: in that way, is probably pretty hopeless (I don't think a design intent of Robocopy, was to make exact copies of C: a possibility). You could copy a C: drive to a FAT32 partition, stripping references to ACLs and ACE. Anything remotely related to Reparse Points would be ruined. Hardlinks would be replaced by two unlinked (exact) copies of the same file (breaking future Windows Update or OS Upgrade operations). Copying the files off the FAT32 and back onto an NTFS partition, then leaves the "technician" the job of tidying up all the details (including some very nasty namespace tricks that have been buried in some versions of Windows 10 C: ). That's possibly ten thousand things you have to fix. I'm still looking for a utility that allows comparing two partitions, for "exactness". Something that can tell me the permissions are different, the timestamp is different, the Alternate Stream is missing, and so on. The NFI utility of long ago gives some nice info. but it alone isn't enough. I often wonder how the 20+ companies that make backup software, satisfy themselves they're doing a good job. How do they know the restored partition is the same as the source ? Paul |
#11
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Universal Folder Access?
"Bill in Co" wrote
| Under the C:\Users\Owner account (me), in Windows Explorer, I find this, | when I right mouse click on: C:\Users\Owner\Application Data: (to see the | permissions): | You should be able to access your own folder, but you also have to be aware that some of them are fake. Microsoft created a complex system for storing personal data, then made it more complex by breaking that down into categories (local, roaming, etc), then put the icing on their Rube Goldberg cake by creating a number of fake folders for virtualization. There are two factors at work. 1) They're not designing it for you to use. They're designing it so that corporate employees can log onto any computer at their company and automatically get access to their Word docs and personalization, while simultaneously being blocked from any other activity. 2) Virtualization: It was developed to fool older software in order to make the Vista/7 transition easier. With Vista they made a radical decision that the system must lie to software for the sake of backward compatibility. They also changed the folder structure. In order to prevent older software from breaking, it's lied to when necessary. So software that asks the system what version of Windows it is running on might sometimes be told it's XP! Likewise, software that tries to save settings to all users app data, where that's no longer allowed, will be silently redirected to the personal app data folder. In a way Microsoft's approach was a good solution to a tricky problem. But it also creates its own problems. And as a software developer it can create problems for me. If I have software that hasn't been updated for Vista/7 I'll block it from running. People can then use compatibility mode to make it run. But that doesn't fix anything. My software is still running on an unsupported system. All compat mode does is to lie and tell my software it's running on XP! So then people will write to me and complain that my software is buggy. So then I have to find tricks to get around compat mode to find out which Windows version I'm really running on. It's impossible now to have program settings that apply to everyone without acting contrary to Microsoft's guidelines. Anything that writes to all users app data or HKLM\Software without the right permissions will be silently redirected to the personal equivalent. That's a case where you could fix incompatible software by removing the restrictions, and it's really not a security issue. Those restrictions are just to keep lackey users separated from each other. You can't really avoid having programs like Firefox put your settings in your personal folder, but aside from that I find it's best to avoid the whole mess. You don't actually need to use locations like your documents folder. In fact, I already avoid the whole mess on XP. I have a shortcut to get to app data when I need to do things like editing browser settings. For anything else I make sure that no software defaults to storing files anywhere in that mess. I haven't opened the documents folder for years. It's a glaringly bad design in one very irritating respect: The path to both the desktop and app data/docs is very long and contains spaces. That makes for big hassles in scripting, command line, etc. On Win9x it was C:\Windows\desktop and C:\documents. That was a single user design. Now each user has those folder personally, at the end of a very long path. As others have noted, while there are workarounds, Win7 is a brittle system, easily broken. See the caveats on the NT6 Restriction Fix page. For instance, it's nice to be able to control the winsxs folder, but you can't do much without breaking it. In most cases it's easier just to dial down UAC and avoid the standard file system. You can also create FAT32 partitions for storing clean files. FAT32 doesn't support file restrictions. You probably don't want to do that on a computer in an office that others have access to, but personally I find that on my computers, in my own home, file restrictions are effectively just faulty design. I do something like that on XP. XP itself is installed on FAT32. My data partitions are FAT32. I then have a couple of NTFS data partitions that I mainly use for storing files bigger than 4 GB. (That's the FAT32 limit.) I then uninstall system file protection and end up with full control of everything. Unfortunately, Vista/7 is blocked from installing to FAT32, so that option is out post-XP. But you can still set up FAT32 partitions. |
#12
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Universal Folder Access?
On 24/08/2018 12:04, Paul wrote:
Java Jive wrote: Be aware that, in Vista+, the so-called 'admin' account is actually a user account with privileges that can be elevated to perform minor admin tasks, it's not the actual Administrator account per se which is disabled by default.Â* One of the first things I do in a new W7 installation is enable the real Administrator account, but even that is not enough ... What is the difference between an account belonging to Administrator group, and the "real" Administrator account ? I've been unable to spot a difference using whoami /user /priv. The main value of both accounts, is the Impersonate privilege. I've not gone into it in great detail, but ISTR that I couldn't do certain things as an elevated user that I could do logged on as the Administrator. Taking ownership of the entire Windows directory heirarchy may have been an example, or of the entire registry, something like that anyway. The circular reference caused by the junction points (maybe 62 of them on a typical icacls run over C:\), is probably hitting the max_path_length. If you need an exact answer on a given OS, you could use Process Monitor while icacls is running, and capture the path probes as they happen. There is a mythical option to increase the max_path_length on Windows 10, but it may not be enabled by default. You may well be right about that, but I don't think it matters whether it runs out of path buffer length or stack space, what is important is that it carries on regardless of the apparent failure. The average user needs to know not to give up when it starts to iterate over the circular links, because the seemingly endlessly process will in fact end successfully, despite the contrary impression given. Robocopy has the same problem with Junction Points as icacls, but it has a command line option to "step over" those. Not that I recommend Robocopy for "cloning C:\". On Windows 10, cloning C: in that way, is probably pretty hopeless (I don't think a design intent of Robocopy, was to make exact copies of C: a possibility). You could copy a C: drive to a FAT32 partition, stripping references to ACLs and ACE. Anything remotely related to Reparse Points would be ruined. Hardlinks would be replaced by two unlinked (exact) copies of the same file (breaking future Windows Update or OS Upgrade operations). Copying the files off the FAT32 and back onto an NTFS partition, then leaves the "technician" the job of tidying up all the details (including some very nasty namespace tricks that have been buried in some versions of Windows 10 C: ). That's possibly ten thousand things you have to fix. I'm still looking for a utility that allows comparing two partitions, for "exactness". Something that can tell me the permissions are different, the timestamp is different, the Alternate Stream is missing, and so on. The NFI utility of long ago gives some nice info. but it alone isn't enough. I often wonder how the 20+ companies that make backup software, satisfy themselves they're doing a good job. How do they know the restored partition is the same as the source ? I don't know! But I gave up using conventional backup software in the days when I was backing up to DAT, and discovered the hard way that it has a single point of failure - if the last tape in the series goes down, the entire backup is lost, because that's the one holding all the directory information! Nowadays, I use Ghost to back up the system partition, and DeltaCopy to back up the Data partition. Ghost has this same weakness, in that if you split the image into several spans, if the last is lost, so is the whole image, but I have so many backups going back so far that this is very rarely a problem in actual practice. If I need to compare two heirarchies, I usually use WinDiff, but that majors on contents, and won't usually tell you much about timestamps unless one or both of the files from the two heirarchies is unreadable through being locked, then it will log whether the timestamps differ, and which is newer. |
#13
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Universal Folder Access?
"Mayayana" on Fri, 24 Aug 2018 09:39:47
-0400 typed in alt.windows7.general the following: You can't really avoid having programs like Firefox put your settings in your personal folder, but aside from that I find it's best to avoid the whole mess. You don't actually need to use locations like your documents folder. In fact, I already avoid the whole mess on XP. I have a shortcut to get to app data when I need to do things like editing browser settings. For anything else I make sure that no software defaults to storing files anywhere in that mess. I haven't opened the documents folder for years. Hmmm - this sounds like something I might try. Now to see what blows up when I do. It's a glaringly bad design in one very irritating respect: The path to both the desktop and app data/docs is very long and contains spaces. That makes for big hassles in scripting, command line, etc. On Win9x it was C:\Windows\desktop and C:\documents. That was a single user design. Now each user has those folder personally, at the end of a very long path. and every path name starts with that long "C:\users\owner\directory tree" - as you say, really messes with where stuff is. (I have a number of documents with subdocuments. "C:\users\owner\directory tree\ProjectA\SD_boilerplate1.wpd" "C:\users\owner\directory tree\ProjectA\SD_standard inclusion3.wpd" Gets difficult to figure out which is this when what shows up is "C:\users\owner\directory tree\proje..." (it is all there, just not displayed.) I hacked around that by Subst S: "C:\users\owner\directory tree\ProjectA" and "defaulting" to drive S: for word processing. But I might just try creating a directory c:\WorkingArea and seeing what blows up. When I get back from the trip. Thanks. If I could get a copy of XP in 64bit, I might try and revert. tschus pyotr -- pyotr filipivich Next month's Panel: Graft - Boon or blessing? |
#14
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Universal Folder Access?
"pyotr filipivich" wrote
| I haven't | opened the documents folder for years. | | Hmmm - this sounds like something I might try. | | Now to see what blows up when I do. I wouldn't anticipate problems. Documents isn't anything special. It's only notable aspects are that you have permission there and some programs (MS Word is a notable example) save files there by default. I always just use SaveAs for new files, so I don't even really need to think about program settings. But I think most programs will let you choose the default location. I like to have redundant storage, so I often save to the desktop and then drop the file onto shortcuts for other partitions. In XP it's also feasible to use C:\windows\desktop, though I don't remember how I made the change. I don't know if that can be done in Vista+ because they're trying to enforce the idea of no shared folders. |
#15
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Universal Folder Access?
Java Jive wrote:
On 23/08/2018 23:26, Bill in Co wrote: How do I easily get complete and unrestricted folder and file access to ALL folders and files in Win 7? Never allow Everyone any sort of access on a computer, except possibly a Public folder which doesn't contain anything important. In general, use Authenticated Users instead, which limits access to those with an enabled user account on the machine. Be aware that, in Vista+, the so-called 'admin' account is actually a user account with privileges that can be elevated to perform minor admin tasks, it's not the actual Administrator account per se which is disabled by default. One of the first things I do in a new W7 installation is enable the real Administrator account, but even that is not enough ... Many parts of the file system and registry are no longer owned by the Administrators group, but by other users or groups such as Trusted Installer, Network Service, etc. Effectively with Vista+, when signed on as a normal user running elevated privileges, you are just a first-level support lackey, and even when signed on as the Administrator, you are merely a second-level support lackey, the true Administrator of the computer is Microsoft. If you try and take matters into your own hands by using the GUI to give the Administrators group permissions on an important directory or registry key and then replicating these permissions down the entire tree which *replaces*, rather than adds to, existing permissions, things can stop working. This outrageous situation causes many, many problems to would-be customisers of Vista+ versions of Windows. You have just encountered one. Try the following: 1) Depending on where you want to obtain permissions, before doing anything else, you may wish to back up the entire system disk using Ghost or equivalent disk cloning/imaging program, so that you know that, if things foul up, you've got an easy escape. 2) As suggested by others, enable the Administrator account (AFAICR you may have to use a similar command just before or after the one given here to set the password) ... http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windo...windows-vista/ 3) Sign on as Administrator 4) Open a command prompt 5) Enter the appropriate one of ... TAKEOWN /D Y /R /F root directory of heirarchy ... to give current user (Administrator) ownership ... TAKEOWN /D Y /R /F root directory of heirarchy /A ... to give the Administrators group ownership ... TAKEOWN /D Y /R /F root of heirarchy /U user /P pass ... to give a specific user ownership. Probably the second example is what you want, but for other possibilities see TAKEOWN /?. Note that, due to the idiotic circular links in some places in the folder heirarchy, for example Application Data, this will produce longer and longer messages until erroring, but don't interrupt it - my recollection is that whenever it encounters a circular reference the command will continue going round the circle until it runs out of stack space, print an error message, and then continue with the next directory entry. 6) Enter ... ICACLS /C /L /Q /T /grant User or SID:F for full control ... again the /C & /L are required because of the circular links, and again see ICACLS /? for further possibilities, but never use the :r (replace permissions) option unless it's a very unimportant part of the system or unless you really, really know what you're doing. In summary, Step 5 gives ownership of the entire heirarchy to, preferably, the Administrators group, thus allowing you, either as now signed on as Administrator or later using raised privileges as a normal user, to perform step 6 which is what you really want, the granting of full access to an appropriate user. Well, ok, I will take this under advisement! But boy that seems like a lot of work, just to get access to folders, like I had back in XP. Again, I'm the only user, and here at home. But here's a question for you: Since I am the only user of this computer, and programs seem to have access to such folders anyway as they are being installed online, what is the big problem with simply using the simpler Everyone folder with full access method? We've already got anti-virus, etc installed to protect against such potentially bad things, no? Again, the folders I don't seem to have access to a Application Data Cookies (but who cares) Local Settings Send To Start Menu And ALL of the above are important to me (except Cookies), for program settings, etc. For example, if I want to add something to the Send To list, that is just another classic case of these undue restrictions. Yet \Program Files and \Windows is not so restricted. |
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