OT: Windoze 7 Home Premium

[Happyoldgit]

I've treated myself to a new laptop which is running Windows 7 Home Premium.

Even though I login to the Admin account I still can't access some folders and files on the system. Now, I understand that I can take 'ownership' of individual files to gain access but I just don't have the willpower to do that every single time I want to get into something on the system.

I've Googled the issue but the 'fixes' I've tried to date have not done the trick.

Question is therefore when logged in as Admin what do I need to do to be able to permanently gain access to ALL the folders and files on the system?

[disco_al]

from memory you need to change the settings in User Account Control

Control Panel > System and Security > User Account Control that should also stop all those silly "are you sure you want to make changes" messages too

[Retroanaconda]

What files and folders can't you access? And by access do you mean read or write permissions?

Any user account with an 'Administrator' level should be able to do anything on the system. By default User Account Control will prompt you to do various things (installing software etc.), but you should have access to the whole directory tree.

Or is it other users' files and folders you want access to? I'm not sure how that works, I've never had a PC with more than one user account, but if the other users made their folders public then they'd be visible to all.

[landroversforever]

As an administrator level account you would be able to access all of the other accounts files. I can't remember if this also applies to fellow admin accounts!

[V8 Freak]

Steve,

There are a few folders that Windows 7 does protect violently.... Usually marked with a padlock. On some there are other ways into them (Like Documents and Settings folder)

One little trick I learnt was to make a new folder in the Root of C: drive and call it "GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}"

(Take away the speech marks at either end.)

This gives you all major settings in one folder now ! :-)

Neil

[Happyoldgit]

Steve,

There are a few folders that Windows 7 does protect violently.... Usually marked with a padlock. On some there are other ways into them (Like Documents and Settings folder)

One little trick I learnt was to make a new folder in the Root of C: drive and call it "GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}"

(Take away the speech marks at either end.)

This gives you all major settings in one folder now ! :-)

Neil

Well, I want to access all of them including the ones with the little padlock. For example I want to get into the currently padlocked Application Data so I manually transfer e-mail from one system to the new one.

[Retroanaconda]

It may be that you have to right click the folder and add permissions for your user group under the Security tab.

Is it the AppData folder for your currently logged in user that you're trying to access, or another user?

The folder is usually hidden too, although that shouldn't affect access permissions, only visibility.

[Happyoldgit]

It may be that you have to right click the folder and add permissions for your user group under the Security tab.

Is it the AppData folder for your currently logged in user that you're trying to access, or another user?

The folder is usually hidden too, although that shouldn't affect access permissions, only visibility.

Logged in as Admin I've tried that. Right click and folder is showing that Admin has all the required permissions but still get an access denied pop-up when trying to get into it.

[Bowie69]

In win7, some of the old 'docs and settings' folders don't really exist any more, and are replaced under the c:\users\admin\appdata folder, if you look carefully some of them (like application data) have a shortcut arrow on them, meaning they aren't accessible, and there isn;t anything in them.

So... instead of using 'Application Data', use 'AppData' in your case

[TheRecklessEngineer]

I can bring this on topic by stating that I had HUGE trouble with MegaTune and EasyTherm because of Windows 7 security things.

The files being created by EasyTherm didn't even show up to me as I didn't have the correct privileges. It caused a wasted afternoon.

[Retroanaconda]

This is what my user folder looks like (with Show hidden folders turned on):

Also shows the permissions for my user (I'm an Administrator level account, obviously) on the AppData folder.

As above, it's AppData (and then probably the 'Local' folder within that) that you'll be looking for in order to transfer over your Outlook PST file if that's what you're trying to do.

[Happyoldgit]

This is what my user folder looks like (with Show hidden folders turned on):

Also shows the permissions for my user (I'm an Administrator level account, obviously) on the AppData folder.

As above, it's AppData (and then probably the 'Local' folder within that) that you'll be looking for in order to transfer over your Outlook PST file if that's what you're trying to do.

Got you

But as the administrator what I'd like is to be able to say open up the C drive and not find myself presented with padlocked and access denied folders,

[Bowie69]

They aren't access denied folders really, more 'these don't exist, so don't worry yourself about them'

The only two I can't get in are 'System Volume info' and 'Documents and settings', which you have no cause or reason to go into...

Or are there others?

A screenshot of the C drive root would be very helpful

[Retroanaconda]

It may be a feature of Windows 7 Home Premium, as I don't have any of the padlocked folders, except my own within the Users folder. I'm running Windows 7 Professional so things may be different, I don't know

If you're used to pre-Vista operating systems, then the change-around of the structures may be a little odd. Documents and Settings has become 'Users' and everything is within there. You'll find in there the AppData folder, which is the one your emails (at least for Outlook) are stored in.

[elbekko]

I see no padlocks on any of my folders in W7 Ultimate. Are you sure it isn't a Bitlocker (encryption) thing?

[landroversforever]

I'm mainly still an XP bloke... so if XP wasn't (that) broke, why fix it

[elbekko]

Because it was actually broken, it's 10 years old and is based on an even older kernel. Vista did a huge overhaul, and W7 was more of a service pack to Vista than anything else really. There are a whole lot of improvements, from security to usability, and I wouldn't want XP back.

[BogMonster]

Because it was actually broken, it's 10 years old and is based on an even older kernel. Vista did a huge overhaul, and W7 was more of a service pack to Vista than anything else really. There are a whole lot of improvements, from security to usability, and I wouldn't want XP back.

I've used Vista a bit and I wouldn't want anything except XP. Vista is awful, and I'm dreading the day my 2 old computers running XP need replacing but it's not going to be long

Not sure about 7 not really tried it but if it's an "improved" Vista I suppose that means it'll need 16 gig of RAM and about a gazillabyte of HD

[Retroanaconda]

Quite the opposite, 7 is very lightweight (for a Microsoft OS ). Vista was quite bad in it's early days, especially for those on older systems, but it was patched through to a workable system by the end. 7 is a major improvement on Vista, and in my view better than XP

[elbekko]

Vista wasn't all that heavy with the right settings, and was a pleasure to use after SP1 (as with most MS OSes). Vista just after release was awful though. But then again, so was XP, and it took until SP2 until it did things right.

[TheRecklessEngineer]

At work, the computers for the automation system are running Windows 3.1

From what I could tell, it hadn't been restarted since the build date in '97.