I have the read only issue on a new install of windows 10

Before posting this I searched the web all last night trying to fix this issue, I have changed permissions and things like that and nothing has worked for me. Yesterday I bought new hard drives and uploaded windows 10 to them. Prior to installing windows 10 they were already formatted (I wanted to make sure they worked properly first). My SSD and my hard drive both are stuck on read only. I can go into properties and uncheck the "Read-only" box but it will appear checked again right when I go back to properties. This problem is preventing me from allowing steam to put games on my SSD, which is exactly what I bought it for. Any help would be very appreciated.

EDIT: Ways I have tried to fix this:

1. Running "userpassword2"

2. Disabling OneDrive

3. Editing User Permissions

Okay, let's take a step back and make sure that we aren't chasing a red herring

First, If I open WIndows explorer and I look at the properties, I see it's checked as Read Only. The same is true for every folder on C:\.



In Windows, from the GUI, the read-only attribute is not configurable for directories, only the files in those directories. Within the Windows GUI, the "read only flag, +r) is only there to indicate if the folder has been customized. Other than that, the flag is ignored, thus Windows doesn't care about this flag when reading or writing to the folder. You will still be able to read to the folder.

In that dialog box, the square block in the checkbox simply means "you opened the properties dialog box on a folder and there are no changes you have made". This square block tells windows to do nothing to the read-only attribute of files within that folder.

To test this, create a folder on C drive. Then put a text file into that directories. View the properties on the directory, toggle the read-only box until you get a checkmark. Once you do, hit apply or ok. You will get a warning that the files contained within the directory (your single text file), will be set as read-only. Tell that ok. Now, look at the properties of that folder again. You should have a square box in the read-only field. You haven't made any additional changes since you opened that window. If you navigate into the folder, and check properties of the text file, it will have a checkmark and you will be unable to write to the file.

pparks1 said:

Okay, let's take a step back and make sure that we aren't chasing a red herring

First, If I open WIndows explorer and I look at the properties, I see it's checked as Read Only. The same is true for every folder on C:\.



In Windows, from the GUI, the read-only attribute is not configurable for directories, only the files in those directories. Within the Windows GUI, the "read only flag, +r) is only there to indicate if the folder has been customized. Other than that, the flag is ignored, thus Windows doesn't care about this flag when reading or writing to the folder. You will still be able to read to the folder.

In that dialog box, the square block in the checkbox simply means "you opened the properties dialog box on a folder and there are no changes you have made". This square block tells windows to do nothing to the read-only attribute of files within that folder.

To test this, create a folder on C drive. Then put a text file into that directories. View the properties on the directory, toggle the read-only box until you get a checkmark. Once you do, hit apply or ok. You will get a warning that the files contained within the directory (your single text file), will be set as read-only. Tell that ok. Now, look at the properties of that folder again. You should have a square box in the read-only field. You haven't made any additional changes since you opened that window. If you navigate into the folder, and check properties of the text file, it will have a checkmark and you will be unable to write to the file.

So I tried what you said and it didn't make the text file read only. What I am referring to though is that steam (where I get all my games from) cannot write to the folder in my C drive because it is on read only. Most likely because it is a folder it is trying to access not a file. Any suggestions?

Well, clearly your hard drive is not read only. If it were, you would have not have been able to create a test folder, or created a text file within the folder. I was explaining the above because I think you have decided it's a read-only problem, when it in fact is not.

Here is my folder C:\readonlytest and I have toggled the Read-only flag to have a checkmark


When I hit apply, i get a confirmation that the attribute on the files will change;


When I click on Ok, and go into that folder, I look at the properties of my text file and it's read only.


If I open that text file, add a line, and hit File/Save, it will prompt me for a new name, as it knows the file is read only. If I pick the same name and try to push on, I end up with this error (as file is read only).





Onto your actual problem.
Create a folder on C called SteamGames, and see if you can point steam to C:\steamgames. It should be able to write inside of that folder.

When I did it in just C:\Steam it worked. Before I was doing C:\Programs(86)\Steam and it wasn't working. Will that come to haunt me again or should i just put them in a new folder that isn't programs 86?

Shouldn't be a problem. Windows can be protective of these other folders. If you are using a limited user account, you might be experiencing a few more issues.

I personally install to a folder on the root of my drive. Makes it easy to see exactly how much space my games and such are consuming.