Weird Save Issues

fumjum · 26 Feb 2018

I'm having a weird issue saving things to my desktop. When I save any file from any program to my desktop with "save as" I get an error that the file could not be found, which obviously it couldn't because I haven't saved it yet. If I open a file that already exists on the desktop and change it and "save," it tells me the file may be protected and couldn't be saved. If I save in other places besides my desktop things save just fine except in other folders that are also on my desktop. I have tried restarting but that doesn't fix the problem. Could there be some weird security setting that I set? Is windows security center trying to protect me in an annoying way? Any help would be appreciated.

fumjum · 26 Feb 2018

Nevermind, I figured it out. I had Controlled Folder Access turned on in Windows Defender and that was the cause. I figure I'd leave this up in case someone else needs the help.

Bree · 26 Feb 2018

Welcome to TenForums @fumjum

Controlled Folder Access is a useful protection against ransomware. If you want to turn it back on (I have it turned on) then you may need to grant some of your app access. Defender actually helps you by telling you what to add.

The action center notification for a Controlled Folder Access event tells you exactly what was blocked and the path to find it. You can then just add it to the 'allowed apps' list.

This is not always the obvious executable you'd expect. LibreOffice is a case in point. To get full access for my LibreOffice it was soffice.bin that had to be an allowed app.

If you no longer have the action center notification to hand, or if the path was truncated because it's too long, don't worry. These Controlled Folder Access events are also recorded in the Event Log as Event ID 1123 in...
Application and Service Logs/Microsoft/Windows/Windows Defender/Operation