How to get permission to go anywhere in the GUI

Do you have Explorer set to show hidden files and folders?

tenforums tutorials | show-hidden-files-folders-drives-windows-10

fb2 said:

When I first setup win 10 I went through all the advanced setttings and set that one to 'show hidden files and folders'. It has been working that way until about a month ago when the problem showed up. Now I set it again and all is well. I don't have clue as why this happened.

Thanks
fb2

Glad you solved it

Basics of running a Microsoft Tokenized Security system

You are running as a standard user most of the time, even when you are running an administrator account, This is a system that Microsoft has introduced some time ago to aid with system security. It is part of the User Access Control [UAC] that is designed to prevent remote systems ,[Malware] from installing itself with Admin level rights - Any process, including malware always run with the rights of the user running it

In previous systems a system administrator would run two user accounts - one would have full administrative access to the local system and the other would have full access to the data areas but none to the system areas, the second account was used for data to day access, as it meant that if the admin left a system in use and logged in there was less likelihood of a user causing accidental damage to system files that could result in the system requiring re-installation. In the past on some secure networks I have been involved with I have had four or five accounts with different access rights for Full network access, local access to a particular PC, and various data access options [eg Personal employee data]

Because of this Tokenized system where you have to Elevate the user to gain access to the secure areas of the system, that Malware is targeted at, it can feel a little hit or miss with access especially to those used to the totally insecure operating systems such as Windows XP where the default user was the Administrator, and the 9.x series which had no security at all.

There is a high level Administrator account in all windows Systems that run the Tokonized system, that has the full rights of the old XP administrator which is known as the Hidden Administrator, which is useful for high level security use and some users unhide and use for day to day working, this is a bad idea as it wipes out all security that is built into the operating system but this is an option if you wish to run the system without all the prompts.

If you have a badly written application that loads user data into the secure areas there are other methods of gaining access to this data by manually adjusting the NTFS, [File System], access rights, which can be a little tricky at first but becomes quite simple with practice, This requirement is due to the presence of the Trusted Installer user that has more rights that the regular Administrators Group so requires the use of the hidden administrator to tweak the access rights.

TL;DR

Things such as hiding files are a minor part of this security scheme and it has been known for a Windows 10 Feature Update [the twice annual updates ] to reset some standards to their defaults which is probably the reason in your case

It is also possible to find the Explorer.exe (the file manager), right click and elevate this, [Run as Administrator], which will allow you to gain the same access as running a command prompt as Admin, which is a lot more convenient, but is best only used temporarily although on your system you could create an elevated shortcut to explorer that may be used to perform these tasks - just check the run as administrator box and follow the UAC when using it