lack permissions to my documents

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  1. Posts : 201
    Kernel 4.x.x
       #11

    Hey, I know what your problem is.

    On Windwos XP, the "Users" folder was called "Documents and Settings".

    On Vista and 7, Microsoft was worried that by changing the name of a folder which was vital to a lot of programs running correctly, would render a bunch of software broken.

    So they used a new filesystem addition (actually an old Unix idea), called the "Symbolic Link".

    Symbolic Links are kind of like shortcuts, but they don't actually take up space on the hard drive. (Shortcuts do, albeit a very small amount). They point to other files or directories, and are supposed to be mostly transparent to programs and scripts which might use one.

    They can also potentially be a security risk. Since they point to other files or directories on a filesystem (or across filesystems) they can be maliciously employed to give an anonymous user access to system directories (which lack proper ACLs [aka permissions]).

    The other problem that symbolic links can cause is known as "recursive linking" or having a symbol link which points to directory above itself in a directory chain. This might not seem like a big deal, but you can witness it being a problem by using that very registry file that you've installed.

    That script will recurse down through directories until it runs out of files to change the ownership of. If it came across a symbolic link to the directory above itself, the poorly written script would endlessly loop, consuming system resources, potentially doing damage.

    Because of this, Microsoft has made the default security of symbolic links as only being usable by privileged and high-integrity processes. This allows installations made for XP to still work properly on Vista and 7, while preventing wanna-be hackers from "symlinking" a Windows computer, and bad script writers from making Microsoft look bad.


    In short:
    That "folder" you're trying to access isn't actually a folder at all. Its a symbolic link which points to ".C:\Users" on your system. So there's no need to worry about it.


    To give yourself access to following synmbolic links, despite the potential risks I pointed out above:

    Press Winkey + R
    Type "gpedit.msc"
    Follow this path:
    Computer Configuration > Windows Settings > Security Settings > Local Policies > Security Options

    Double Click
    "System objects: Strengthen default permissions of internal system objects (e.g., Symbolic Links)"

    Change to "Disabled"

    Be Warned: Changing this setting makes your computer more insecure. Don't do it unless you know what you're doing.

    Careful: The group policy settings are very powerful, so much so you can render yourself locked out of your system.
      My Computers


  2. Posts : 356
    windows 10 pro x64 21H1
    Thread Starter
       #12

    Hydranix said:
    Hey, I know what your problem is.

    On Windwos XP, the "Users" folder was called "Documents and Settings".

    On Vista and 7, Microsoft was worried that by changing the name of a folder which was vital to a lot of programs running correctly, would render a bunch of software broken.

    So they used a new filesystem addition (actually an old Unix idea), called the "Symbolic Link".

    Symbolic Links are kind of like shortcuts, but they don't actually take up space on the hard drive. (Shortcuts do, albeit a very small amount). They point to other files or directories, and are supposed to be mostly transparent to programs and scripts which might use one.

    They can also potentially be a security risk. Since they point to other files or directories on a filesystem (or across filesystems) they can be maliciously employed to give an anonymous user access to system directories (which lack proper ACLs [aka permissions]).

    The other problem that symbolic links can cause is known as "recursive linking" or having a symbol link which points to directory above itself in a directory chain. This might not seem like a big deal, but you can witness it being a problem by using that very registry file that you've installed.

    That script will recurse down through directories until it runs out of files to change the ownership of. If it came across a symbolic link to the directory above itself, the poorly written script would endlessly loop, consuming system resources, potentially doing damage.

    Because of this, Microsoft has made the default security of symbolic links as only being usable by privileged and high-integrity processes. This allows installations made for XP to still work properly on Vista and 7, while preventing wanna-be hackers from "symlinking" a Windows computer, and bad script writers from making Microsoft look bad.


    In short:
    That "folder" you're trying to access isn't actually a folder at all. Its a symbolic link which points to ".C:\Users" on your system. So there's no need to worry about it.


    To give yourself access to following synmbolic links, despite the potential risks I pointed out above:

    Press Winkey + R
    Type "gpedit.msc"
    Follow this path:
    Computer Configuration > Windows Settings > Security Settings > Local Policies > Security Options

    Double Click
    "System objects: Strengthen default permissions of internal system objects (e.g., Symbolic Links)"

    Change to "Disabled"

    Be Warned: Changing this setting makes your computer more insecure. Don't do it unless you know what you're doing.

    Careful: The group policy settings are very powerful, so much so you can render yourself locked out of your system.
    hey, thanks. I will save this post. but I think I'll let the issue alone for the meantime, in light of your caveats. I can work around the problem pretty painlessly, at least until I come up against another brick wall.
      My Computers


  3. Posts : 356
    windows 10 pro x64 21H1
    Thread Starter
       #13

    I think this problem might be related to an upgrade I did.
      My Computers


  4. Posts : 356
    windows 10 pro x64 21H1
    Thread Starter
       #14

    I moved the location of "documents" to a different drive, and that seems to work pretty well for me. so far, no problems.
      My Computers


  5. Posts : 13
    Windows 10 - 10547
       #15

    related problem


    I jumped on the Win10 TP bandwagon at build 10074 and was fine until build 10166, at which point I lost access privileges to /Documents and /Games and possibly other directory locations. Any file edited in Word, for example, has to be saved to OneDrive because all my local files are locked as "read only." Going into Windows Explorer and manually changing permissions fails - everything reverts to "read only" immediately afterward.

    I read elsewhere that this kind of problem can happen when a user profile is corrupted, so I followed Microsoft's official instructions for addressing corrupted profiles in Win8.1, hoping it would do the trick in Win10 (I am currently on build 10240 and still have the same inability to save files locally from within apps like Word or games that I am playing). Unfortunately, they require me to copy the contents of My Documents from the corrupted profile to a new profile, but I am entirely unable to open My Documents. Given that Win10 uses My Documents only as a symbolic link, which directories do I really need to copy to test whether the problem is just a corrupt user profile? Many thanks in advance for suggestions (including telling me that this should be opened in a separate thread; I'm often unclear when that is merited, especially when my problem seems highly similar to the OP's problem).
      My Computer


 

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