Win10 Fresh Install All Folders Are Read Only

Zoandar · 19 May 2019

New to Windows 10., pulled the SSD in my PC where I run Windows 7 Home Premium, I installed Windows 10 Home on a new 500GB SSD in its place. I am able to install software, and installed a Xerox Simplex Combo Scanner which comes with Paperport 14 and several utilities. One of them is called ABBYY Fine Reader 12, and it is how the scanner gets the scanned image to the location of your choice to be saved. Works great on Win7. But here on Win10, it tells me I don't have permission to save in the folder I normally use for scanned things on one of the several drives I have in this PC. So I then discover that File Explorer shows EVERY folder on every drive as Read Only. Even the Public folder for my administrator user account!

Trying to un-check Read Only seems to go through the motions, even incorporating some kind of permission gathering for my administrator account. But the attribute always goes back to Read Only. Oddly, I can create new folders in the very same restricted "read only" folder that ABBYY refuses to use for saving. I've read web posts for hours trying all sorts of things and nothing is fixing this. Apparently this issue has some history in Windows 10, based upon all the online complaints. Is there a way to fix this? Most of the online solutions say to take steps with controls that do not appear on my PC, such as trying to issue application specific permissions. There is no link to click on for that with ABBYY FineReader. All attempts to set permissions to Full Access for my administrator account show it already has all of them turned on.

I am at my wit's end here. Thankfully I can still swap in the Win7 SSD and use my computer.

spunk · 19 May 2019

The read-only attribute in Folder Properties does not apply to folders. (It says so right there next to it.) The box is always a filled in block on Folder Properties no matter what. It will always display as an intermediate value Can't unmark Read only from folder.

With Abbyy, it creates a folder called a Hot Folder, this is the default save location for Abbyy Fine reader.
ABBYY Hot Folder

Zoandar · 19 May 2019

Thanks, Spunk! When one's mind is fogged with the utter frustration of what would normally be an "on-off" control refusing to stay turned off, the adjoining statement "(only applies to files in folder)" apparently provides insignificant illumination. 😊 To be honest, I looked at this spot dozens of times, and never even "saw" that text beside it. As well pointed out in your linked thread, the way they did this is unclear at best, and apparently, from the mentions of "this again???" several times, many people feel the same lack of clarity. Since it is impossible to change that checkbox, why even have it?

As for my situation, something I did in the countless attemtps to follow many permission fixing solutions actually fixed ABBYY to allow saving its scans. But I made the mistake of only referring to that silly checkbox as an indication of whether each thing I tried actually worked. So, much like Christopher Pike in Star Trek Menagerie, I apparently blew a hole in the problem early on, but the silly checkbox's mind numbing insistance not to change kept me from ever seeing it until I actually tried again the next morning to scan something.

Anyway, Thanks!

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P.S..... I did search this forum for things like "Read Only" and found absolutely nothing prior to starting this thread.😊