Windows Vista Read-Only
Since we released LandlordMax with full Windows Vista support, we started to notice a certain level of error reports coming with messages stating that the software couldn’t write data to database because the database folder was read-only. Obviously, if the database folder is set to read-only, it can’t write, but the big question is why are any database folders being set to read only? Was it specific to Vista?
At first it was only a few read-only errors so it was harder to nail down. But it didn’t take us long to isolate it to Windows Vista. Although we support Windows Vista, only a small percentage of our customers use it. I believe the current market share is somewhere in the the single digits percentage wise. But as time passes and we add more and more Vista customers, not to mention Vista growing their market share. It’s a growing issue for us and all other software vendors as you’ll soon see if you aren’t already experiencing this issue.
After a lot of investigation we discovered that the “read-only Vista issue” is very prevalent. It’s frustrating a lot of users! To give you an example of just how big an issue this is with Vista, I just did a Google Search and found these threads here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here within seconds. A lot of people are complaining, it’s affecting a lot of software. But worse, it’s not just affecting the software applications but also the users data folders. For example a lot of people are also complaining that they can’t even edit their pictures.
Delving further into the issue, what’s happening is that Microsoft is trying to add extra security to prevent “Malware” from getting onto your computer. Whether or not this is the right approach is an entirely different discussion, but the downside is that it’s definitely causing a lot of frustration to their users! As I’ve already said a lot of people are complaining. Software vendors are getting hit with a lot of extra “support” costs to deal with this issue. After all, if the software doesn’t work, it’s probably the software vendor. Not in this case, but you can’t blame the customer. I initially had the exact same reaction. Windows Vista is still too new that most people haven’t yet figured out this is a Windows Vista issue.
On top of this, something we’re just starting to experience, sometimes if you change the file properties from read-only to read/write (ie uncheck the read-only file attribute), it comes back as read-only!!! What? I uncheck the checkbox, close the folder properties dialog window, and re-open it only to find the read-only checkbox selected. And yes I’m in Admistrator mode. I myself am confused and I’m nowhere near a novice user. I can only imagine the storm that’s going on as most people would have no idea what to do.
Up until recently all our customers could resolve this issue by just changing the folder permissions (at least as far as I know). Now this doesn’t always work. There’s no indication of what to do anywhere within Windows Vista. It changes your settings without you wanting to. I’m personally at a loss and will be contacting Microsoft on Monday to see what’s going on.
I have no doubt that they will have to revisit their decision on this aspect as they gain market share and it becomes more obvious what’s happening within the community at large. I can only imagine the scale of the storm that’s already brewing…
· June 22nd, 2007 · 11:43 pm · Permalink
Great post! I am gonna share it with my own blog readers at jason.landbrokr.com ! Thanks.
· June 26th, 2007 · 12:20 am · Permalink
[...] The first and largest is a fix for Windows Vista and user access control (UAC). UAC is a new feature introduced by Microsoft for Windows Vista that is causing a lot of people grief with a lot of software, including LandlordMax. This update is going to specifically address this issue. It’s not a complete solution, we’re working with Microsoft to “properly” code where the database of LandlordMax should be stored on your computer. but for now this will correctly deal with this issue. [...]
· July 9th, 2007 · 11:19 pm · Permalink
[...] Vista administration bullshit “If you change the file properties from read-only to read/write (ie uncheck the read-only file attribute), it comes back as read-only!!! What? I uncheck the checkbox, close the folder properties dialog window, and re-open it only to find the read-only checkbox selected. And yes I’m in Admistrator mode.” My thoughts exactly… http://www.followsteph.com/2007/06/17/windows-vista-read-only/ [...]
· July 18th, 2007 · 1:42 am · Permalink
C:\Windows\ServiceProfiles\NetworkService\AppData\Local\Temp
give everyone access to that temp folder - then it works
· July 22nd, 2007 · 1:20 pm · Permalink
any updates on this issue?
· July 22nd, 2007 · 3:15 pm · Permalink
So far we’ve found a temporary solution that resolves the issue. Right now what we’re doing is requiring the software to ask for full Admin privileges every time LandlordMax starts.
This is not a perfect solution because it has to be positively answered and it might potentially scare off some users (however we’ve been noticing a lot more software applications doing this too).
We’re working on a more permanent solution, one that is “acceptable” by Microsoft (which means it will keep our read/write access). We don’t yet know exactly how to do this, but we’re working on it…
· August 19th, 2007 · 5:27 pm · Permalink
you can change the read only flag by using the attrib command in command prompt like so: attrib -r -s C:\users\folder. This will only change the flag in the folder. You might want to write a VB script to take care of the sub folders. Hope this helps
· August 29th, 2007 · 5:27 pm · Permalink
It can’t be a security/permissions feature, or Administrators would be able to set permissions on a single folder. It just has to be a bug. And it’s exceedingly annoying.
· August 29th, 2007 · 9:44 pm · Permalink
Hi Eric,
It’s actually part of Windows Vista new UAC (User Access Control) system. If you turn it off all the issues go away. If you set the program to demand Admin access each time (with an annoying popup) it goes away. If you don’t, on some occasions Vista will downgrade your access and prevent you from writing to the disk. We’ve got the exact same issue with our Anti-virus solution!
· August 31st, 2007 · 4:40 pm · Permalink
Yeah, I’m having the same problem with playing games on my system. I’ve yet to find a fix that actually works, but it’s more than frustrating. >.
· September 3rd, 2007 · 2:10 pm · Permalink
Hi,
The most common solution, the one that’s NOT recommended by Microsoft, is to turn of UAC (User Access Control). A good percentage of people have already started to turn this feature off for this very reason.
I suspect they will be re-addressing this issue in the upcoming major service pack update.
· September 5th, 2007 · 12:14 pm · Permalink
Thanks for your reply, Steph.
However, allow me to insist.
1. On my machine, UAC has been turned off from day one (just couldn’t live with it…). I just tried re-enabling it, then disabling it again, just for kicks. Turning off read-only still doesn’t stick.
2. Vista never gives any indication as to why the operation, conducted under Administrator privileges, fails to register. I thought it may have been Windows Defender, turned that off, didn’t help. Who dunnit? Who’s in charge?
To me, that behavior is just not a feature. It’s a bug, either in implementation, or in UI.
· September 5th, 2007 · 5:37 pm · Permalink
When you open a program that might require changes to the files, right click and run program as administrator. It’s the only solution if it is write-protecting your files and not allowing you to make changes. Nothing else seems to work at this time.
· September 9th, 2007 · 11:01 pm · Permalink
Hi Eric,
Turning off UAC works most of the time… As GuardianMars is suggesting, that’s the only thing I’ve been able to guarantee with 100% success. I can’t explain it either, which is why for my main box I’m using XP. I’m just finding Vista to be more pain than it’s worth.
· September 28th, 2007 · 9:53 am · Permalink
If you want Write permission for a group of users (including Admin),
1. Right Click on File/Folder - Permissions.
2. Select Security Tab.
3. Choose the Group / User Names you wish to give permissions to. ie: Users (or Administrators, if you must)
4. Click EDIT
5. Check the permission you want them to have: ie Full Control, Write etc.
This will make that directory (or maybe just that file) accessible to the users you want to have write access.
ie: Forget the R/O attributes they are are not fine grained & will no longer work for you.
—–
Yes I spent the last 20 mins hitting all the issues you mentioned above. ie Clearing the R/O flag only to have it reset etc. But then it dawned on me…
The Security Tab lets you control Security “PER USER” (or “per group” if you prefer) ie: User Access Control lets you set the security differently PER USER. Best security practises suggest that you run with the minimum permissions you require. This includes an Admin account, they are no longer GOD by default. So most of the priviledges are turned off even for Admin. If the Admin wants that Permission then the Admin needs to go & give themselves that permission. (ie if you want your Front door unlocked, go get the key & unlock it. Otherwise you will not be able to open your front door.)
In Short,
People screamed “Hey Microsoft should do something to prevent, malware, trojans etc from hurting me.” They did, we now have that control. We just have to learn how to use it. Turning off UAC is not the answer, just as leaving your car unlocked is not a great solution to prevent you from locking your keys in the car. Yes it is a pain to learn / figure out especially as I didn’t bother to read the manual, but I bet it was in there somewhere.
It would be nice to live in a world where people were not so greedy, criminal &/or didn’t hurt people “just because that can” But we don’t, so I guess the rest of us have to learn to help each other. I hope this helps.
· September 30th, 2007 · 11:26 am · Permalink
David, there’s no excuse for this bug. I tried your suggestion to know no avail. My computer is essentially useless right now. Thanks, Microsoft.
· September 30th, 2007 · 3:26 pm · Permalink
Hi Adam and David,
I found that sometimes Windows will still overtake your settings, even if you manually set them… Not all the time, but some of the times. And unfortunately that makes it even more annoying…
· November 5th, 2007 · 9:55 pm · Permalink
I do that thing that david said. But after i click apply i see all the check marks immediately dissapear. This is really frusterating. I will be reinstalling XP tomorrow, i shouldnt have to deal with this.
· November 8th, 2007 · 1:58 am · Permalink
This is driving me insane. I’ve got my account set to full control in both my account name and the administrator group, and I still can’t even put music in my music folder.
· November 9th, 2007 · 6:09 pm · Permalink
Hi Craig,
The thing Craig suggested only sometimes works. What happens is that other times the UAC (User Access Control) aspect of the Operating System takes over and negates what you just did. The only way to 100% apply this is to turn off UAC.
· November 9th, 2007 · 6:10 pm · Permalink
Hi Andrew,
Looks like you’re hitting the exact same thing too. It’s all related to the UAC feature of the OS. This has to be the most frustrating feature I’ve ever seen. Other than turning it completely off, I don’t know of another solution…
· November 10th, 2007 · 10:41 pm · Permalink
Another thing I found which might be impacting you.
You need to ensure that no other program is accessing the file (folder or sub-folder) you are trying to change. Otherwise sometimes your changes will not happen (or you will be asked to type your Admin password etc) & then get a “retry, skip, cancel” dialog. Which never works as it can’t get an exclusive lock on the file/folder you’re trying to change. (my theory, I don’t know that for a fact)
I got this a lot when I was trying to add attributes (Album/Artist) to my music using Explorer to change all tracks in one directory rather than using Media Player.
I needed to ensure (i) neither Media Player nor another instance of Explorer was using them. (ii) That the R/O flag was cleared in the Folder & File before I could add those extended attributes.
Ie If you have Media Player looking at a song in a subfolder & you attempt to use explorer to set all the properties of the parent, it will prompt you for permission & eventually fail.
I’ve also found that there is a slight difference between using the “Master Admin account” (ie the one you first created when installing Vista) & any other account you create & flag as Administrator. For most times if you are logged on as User & it asks for Admin rights, any admin account will do. But sometimes when installing programs especially Anti-Virus types with low level hooks into the O/S, they seem to fail or have weird bugs that do not occur if you uninstall & reinstall using the Master Admin ac. I expect that this account has extra attributes set like “Run as part of OS” or similar that isn’t set by default.
I’m not convinced that turning UAC off is the “only way to solve the problem”, nor is going back to XP. But I do understand frustration with computers. Many times in the past 25 years I’ve almost punched the Mainframe/Mini/PC screen. Clearly MS has plenty of scope to make this feature more user friendly / intuitive.
Hope this helps you.
· November 10th, 2007 · 11:19 pm · Permalink
Thanks for the reply Steph,
Oddly enough, turning off the UAC feature was the very first thing I did when I got that laptop. Every time I went in to my control panel the computer asked for permission, and that was simply driving me insane.
David might be onto something, I forgot that Winamp does some passive scan on my music folder, so I suppose the folder was being accessed at the time. When I get back to my computer, I’ll be sure to give this a shot and post my results.
· November 12th, 2007 · 11:05 pm · Permalink
Hi David,
I have no doubt that there are options other than turning off UAC, I just haven’t been able to find them. And even if I did, I suspect many programs would still have issues…
It’s just been one frustration after another for me so we’ve turned it off other than for when we need to do Vista product testing for our product (LandlordMax).
· November 12th, 2007 · 11:07 pm · Permalink
Hi Andrew,
I couldn’t agree more. Just the constant asking for permission is enough to drive almost any person insane. Not only that, but it quickly reduces it’s effectiveness. Just before I turned off UAC I barely even noticed it, it was just an automatic click for me. That’s not a good thing!
And please do post your results. This article gets so much traffic that I have no doubt others would also like to know the results.
· November 13th, 2007 · 5:59 am · Permalink
Unfortunately, no good. After the music folder, I even tried to unset other folders
No good.
· November 13th, 2007 · 8:41 am · Permalink
Yeah, this has been a pain for me for awhile. I have reinstalled three times, and each time it comes back. Once it got to the point where I could not rename folders. The new trick this time is that even windows media player does not have rights to access my music. This is all without UAC on, with my entire drive under ownership, and programs being run as admin. Vista would be a good OS if it was stripped to the bone. I would be running Server 2003, (which vista was based on) if it had better support for drivers, etc.
· December 3rd, 2007 · 2:41 pm · Permalink
This is frustrating as hell.
I need to modify a file for visual studio to allow it to use a certain SDK. Well, the file is.. you guessed it.. write protected. I’ve had UAC disabled since day 1, and it’s like running into a brick wall. I disable read only, it reappears. I’ve added the permissions, still running into the wall over and over again.
I’ve even tried going into safe mode with command line and.. I’ve also tried giving myself the needed permissions in the appdata folder.
As has been mentioned before, this behavior is a bug. If this is intentional behavior, going into user accounts or the security panel of the properties tab should be able to modify it.
This right here is an insane issue. This issue makes me wish all my hardware in my laptop was supported by XP. If I wasn’t doing windows development I’d likely quickly start using another OS as well.
As you mentioned in the main article, this could very well be the wrong way to approach the security that they are looking for.
Windows Vista - Keeping the ignorant user ignorant and driving the computer tech to do unspeakable acts.
· December 10th, 2007 · 2:37 pm · Permalink
Hi Odelik,
I’m also curious how they plan to adjust this with SP1 of Vista coming out shortly…
My guess is that this will continue to be an issue for some time, probably years. And it will probably only continue to escalate.
· December 10th, 2007 · 6:39 pm · Permalink
Steph, that’s where I feel that you’re unfortunately correct.
I live in the Metro-Seattle area and have the opportunity to go to seminars hosted by MS employees quite frequently. Most of the employees are talking about how there’s no reason for software to communicated directly with the machine and have full rights.
I understand the security implications behind it, but there are cases where software should need full rights. I’m willing to bet that MS is going to try and force MS Platform developers used the managed pipeline they’re creating.
Which, if you ask me, is going to drive a ton of talented developers away and MS winding up with a ton of lazy developers that really have no true clue about how to program. Just wait till we see the next generation MS Programming language.
· December 11th, 2007 · 6:40 pm · Permalink
Hi Odelik,
I agree with you that some software does need the full rights. If nothing else, if you want to play with your machine you should be able to. However to avoid a holy war as to what rights you should have on your machine, the reality is that if a software application can’t consistently access files on a computer in a fairly simple way, than it’s severely limited!
What’s going to happen is that developers will find workarounds, hacks, you name it. But not only that, just like any other protection method, the real hackers they are trying to stop will also eventually solve the puzzle. Therefore rather than prevent the bad hackers from breaking the system as is the intention (they will anyway, it’s just a matter of when), it will only annoy the good programmers from doing things in a clean and simple way. I believe it will lead to some really weird and ugly hacks to work around the UAC issues.
· January 7th, 2008 · 5:24 am · Permalink
Hi I got my new system and tries to install oracle 10g and failed at first step..not able to write to temp folder ..an i tried unmarknig the readonly flag of ths folder,to my surprice it is coming back as read only .i am loged in as admin and i have edited and given full rights for all users..no way with Vista …
· January 7th, 2008 · 2:41 pm · Permalink
Hi Jibin,
Welcome to the Windows Vista UAC (User Access Control) issues. It’s quite a mess. Unless you turn it off, you’ll be struggling with it for some time. I personally never found a viable solution.
And from what I understand from some of the people commenting here, even when you do turn off UAC Windows Vista still sometimes limits your file permissions.
· January 17th, 2008 · 5:58 am · Permalink
I was having this problem earlier, trying to modify a config file for one of my games (It’s just a basic .txt file, I was using notepad to do it). The issue I ran into was that the file would absolutely refuse to save. It would keep giving me an error.
I went through a few steps, including the often mentioned disabling of UAC. Turning off UAC seemed to solve the problem, but if it isn’t solving it for some other people, here are some other things to try:
-You may not have permissions on the drive that the file is on. This is a major problem a lot of people have been having. It’s a bit of a process to get that changed, you can find a good walkthrough on how to fix this here: http://www.vistaheads.com/forums/microsoft-public-windows-vista-general/7361-re-read-only.html
-Another issue is that apparently program files is considered to be a system folder in Vista, which makes it very hard to modify. And of course, if you’re like me (And probably most people, really), you install everything into that folder, what with it being the default and all. This basically means that anything created by a program installed into Program Files will be just as hard to modify as the folder itself. Something which I didn’t end up needing to do but might help for you is to move whatever you’re trying to modify out of Program Files. Actually, it seems to be pretty anal about letting you modify anything outside your own documents folder. It’s a stupid system and any extra defense from malware it provides is more than overshadowed by the fact that it prevents a lot of the things a legitimate user might be trying to do. I’m hoping they fix this in SP1 but I’m not holding my breath.
Again, turning off UAC fixed this for me, but if it doesn’t work for other people, those might be some things to try.
· January 29th, 2008 · 6:39 pm · Permalink
Hello, I am glad I am not the only one with this problem. But not really, because there shoudlnt be a problem. THis stupid read only crap is drivin me nuts, i spent a long time reading ever post on here and tried everything said…and so far I still get the same problem. I did turn off UAC when i first got vista, but i turned it off and on to try and fix the problem and nothing there. I tried the websites links with solutions and followed instructions and so far nothing. How or when is this going to be fixed? It is really really aggrivating!
· January 30th, 2008 · 4:30 am · Permalink
I finally fixed the problem. I upgraded to XP. Runs alot better now.
· February 4th, 2008 · 9:51 pm · Permalink
Hi h2o826,
I think we’d all like to know when it’s going to be fixed. Unfortunately I don’t know if it ever will…
· February 4th, 2008 · 9:52 pm · Permalink
Hi Rlong,
That’s our solution for our computers. We only use Vista for testing, not for development or day to day work.
· February 5th, 2008 · 9:49 pm · Permalink
I came across this program called vLite that allows you to strip out the things you don’t want to be installed on your OS then creates a custom Install Disc for you.
I’m not sure if vLite is capable of stripping UAC away from Vista or not, and I don’t have the means or the time to find out. If anybody reading through here is willing to try it out, please let us know?
· February 9th, 2008 · 1:01 am · Permalink
Wow. All I can do is shake my head at MS. I have tried everything I can. Still can’t change anything. All I want to do is move some files on my D: drive to my E: drive and I cannot. It started a week ago, now I’m stuck. Help.
· February 9th, 2008 · 11:03 am · Permalink
Hi Blake,
Unfortunately you’re not the only one experiencing this pain. A lot of people are hoping for significant improvements with the Vista Service Pack 1 coming out soon. But from the preliminaries I’ve heard, don’t expect this issue to be resolved…
· February 9th, 2008 · 4:35 pm · Permalink
I believe I caused the read-only issue by enabling/disabling UAC a few times. At some point this read-only bug popped up.
For the life of me I couldn’t fix it.
I did though, come up with a workaround.
I setup a main Admin user account.
Then I deleted the profile that was experiencing the read-only issue.
Then I re-created the user profile that I deleted.
Now I am running smoothly again and will undoubtedly leave UAC off for the lifetime of this system.
· February 10th, 2008 · 5:00 pm · Permalink
Hi Lucas,
I have to admit that your workaround scares me. Not the solution but the fact that it was the only way you were able to make it work.
Let’s hope that with Vista SP1 they’ll resolve a lot of these issues, even if it doesn’t look like it.
· February 11th, 2008 · 1:00 pm · Permalink
Hmm … sounds like disabling the UAC doesn’t always fix the problem. Where are your database files? If I install the application as a user (no administrator privileges at all), do you put the database files in the user’s folder in Documents and Settings?
· February 11th, 2008 · 1:53 pm · Permalink
Hi Steve,
You’re absolutely right about disabling UAC. The other thing to remember is that not everyone is willing to disable it…
So what we ended up having to do is request Administrator Privileges when starting LandlordMax. As part of the install you can add a config file which Windows will read every time the program is started, in which we ask it to ask the user for Admin privileges if they don’t already have them.
It’s not the best solution, but since we’ve implemented it we’ve no longer had any support issues with LandlordMax on Vista. NO other solution consistently worked on all Vista boxes. We’re looking at alternative solutions but until we see that Microsoft has a solid and very stable solution, this is what we’ll stay with.
· March 24th, 2008 · 5:51 pm · Permalink
I just bought a new computer with VISTA, and I am having the same problems to do whatever I want with MY files..
I was almost changing to Mac, today I regret I didn’t …
Can I install XP over VISTA ?
· March 25th, 2008 · 10:19 am · Permalink
You can install a Windows XP image on a Windows Vista box through virtualware, but this requires some technical knowledge. The alternative path, which is the one I took, is to “upgrade” your computer to XP. Basically wipe out Vista and instead install XP.
· April 18th, 2008 · 9:19 am · Permalink
I have been having the same problems with read only folders. I just purchased a new Toshiba laptop that was Vista downgradeable to XP and I had the retailer downgrade it for me. Every darn folder is read only so I am going to try turning of the UCA.
· April 21st, 2008 · 10:36 am · Permalink
Hi Millie,
For me turning off UAC solved all my issues, but as you’ve probably noticed for some of the commentors the issues still persisted.
Btw, just remember that Microsoft recommends against turning off UAC. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t…
· May 16th, 2008 · 2:04 pm · Permalink
—-”Actually, it seems to be pretty anal about letting you modify anything outside your own documents folder”——
So it should be. When you install it for the user anything that needs modifying should go into the users documents and settings folder. There are two application data folders there, one for local settings (which don’t travel with the roaming profile) and one for application data where you put stuff you would want to be accessible from a roaming profile. This has been recommended practice for many years now.
If Vista doesn’t let the user write to those folders there is a bug that needs looking at, but restricting write access (or even read access) to those folders is common sense
· June 17th, 2008 · 1:36 pm · Permalink
Stephen, it’s a BUG, or the most outlandishly arrogant behavior imagineable. It’s *MY* computer. I paid for it, not Bill Gates. I want to write in MY directory on MY computer, like I have been doing for the last THIRTY YEARS.
I want to write in directory.
I turn off read only.
It turns it back on, without telling me.
There is no reasonably documented way to fix it.
This isn’t reasonable behavior.
The world is more complicated than lame end users who have one spreadsheet and a word processing document, which they can keep in their own private My Documents folder.
Some of us share directories and have database servers.
This is way beyond ridiculous.
· June 17th, 2008 · 1:49 pm · Permalink
You don’t get it. If you want to write to *your* directory on *your* computer, then logon as *you*. Each user has write permission to his own directories, and not to anybody elses.
Now, if you are logging on as yourself, and not being able to write to files in your own directory, then either the files belong to someone else, in which case you need to log on with admin rights and assign ownership, or there’s a weird bug in the system.
If you want to share a directory then you need to put the document in shared documents (I believe it’s the all users profile) and set the appropriate permissions.
· June 17th, 2008 · 9:44 pm · Permalink
Hi Stephen,
I believe you’re mis-understanding the point. You can login as admin and change the read/write permissions to a directory to read/write and windows Vista will change it back for you to read only, no matter what you do!!! This is part of how UAC works. At least once it’s decided to take over control of that folder, sometimes it lets it pass, but eventually it takes over and you can’t do anything…
· June 17th, 2008 · 10:26 pm · Permalink
Which particular directory are you talking about, and which files?
· June 17th, 2008 · 10:51 pm · Permalink
Hi Stephen,
Basically pick any directory, say D:\data\whatever. Initially it will work as you expect, you change to read/write and it will obey. Than one day, a random day, it will just change it for you in the background to read only. And no matter what you do, no matter who you’re logged in as (admin included), you suddenly won’t be able to set it to read/write ever again. The permission has just been permanently set to read only.
This doesn’t always happen right away, it can take days, weeks, and even months. But eventually it happens.
Turning off UAC reduces the frequency by which it happens, but it still happens.
· June 17th, 2008 · 11:04 pm · Permalink
I don’t use Vista so I’m extrapolating from XP, but the NT permission system is basically unchanged. The first thing is to look through the permissions? Who is the owner of the file, and what permissions does he have?
What may be happening is that a change has been made higher up and it is being inherited by the sub-folders. One thing to bear in mind is that folders are always read only. Go to advanced security and check the permissions.
· June 18th, 2008 · 10:17 am · Permalink
Hi Stephen,
I think the issue here is that you’re extrapolating from XP. The permissions system has drastically changed in Vista!!
In Vista you now get UAC (and other mechanisms) which can basically override your file permissions to read only. This is regardless of whether or not you’re an admin or if you’re working on a particular file or folder (in any directory on your computer).
And it doesn’t happen consistently, it seems to allow you for some time until it eventually does take over your permissions. At which points there’s very little you can do other than turn off UAC. And sometimes that’s still not enough.
· June 18th, 2008 · 1:02 pm · Permalink
I’m not at all sure that there has been the change you think.
UAC is simply the automated way of having you use the XP and 2000 ‘run as admin’ feature.
The default in XP was that you ran as administrator. If you ran as a normal user you could run into problems when administrator privilege was required, and there was certainly no way you could access another user’s documents folder unless he had specifically given you permission.
Vista has limited the registry keys and directories that can be accessed by a program whilst being installed or by a user. The change applies more to program files than documents and settings.
If the read/write permissions for the contents of a directory are being changed, then it is a question of seeing what is changing them. It is not going to be the flipping of a bit. I am presuming you are talking about local files; files on a network share will also have shared permissions to deal with.
· June 18th, 2008 · 1:03 pm · Permalink
Have you gone through the procedures in this link.
http://www.mydigitallife.info/2007/05/25/how-to-take-ownership-and-grant-permissions-in-windows-vista/
· June 18th, 2008 · 2:42 pm · Permalink
Hi Stephen,
I really think you need to try Vista firsthand. You’ll be very surprised at what’s happening! What you’re suggesting, including the link, doesn’t always work once UAC (and some other processes) decides to take over. That’s the very issue. That’s why so many people are complaining.
For LandlordMax it took us almost two months to fully appreciate the issue. Our first thoughts when we were contacted for technical support were pretty much the same as yours. Login as root and change the permission. Make sure the user who’s running the process owns the files.
Then one day it also happened to our computers. Slowly but surely our Vista instances fell prey to this issue. We did eventually find a solution, but it wasn’t very easy. And it’s not very pretty for the user, but at least it consistently works.
I understand what you’re saying about permissions and ownership. In Linux it would be chown and chmod, but it doesn’t work in Vista, at least not consistently. It’s as if you’re running as root, and run chmod 777 and Vista’s says, I don’t think so, you really meant 444. And that’s what you get. You follow with an ls -al and you see the file is set to 444. What? I just set it as root to 777! So you try again and get the same results. It completely ignores what you want to do. Btw, I’m assuming that the ownership (chown) is correctly linked to the user running the process.
Initially it worked as expected, chmod changed the permissions accordingly. But then one random day it decided that that file/folder/whatever would forever stay as 444 (or 400 if you want), even when executed as root. No matter what you do or who you are.
It doesn’t make sense. It’s broken. That’s why people are complaining. I understand what you’re saying, and that’s the issue. It’s not working as it’s suppose to. It’s broken!
· June 18th, 2008 · 2:51 pm · Permalink
My immediate thought is that something higher up in the hierarchy is getting the permissions changed and they are filtering down.
It may well be broken (though really what that means is that nobody has succeeded in finding the explanation).
I decided to be virtuous and run as user in XP. Outlook stopped downloading email from my ISP! Created new Outlook instance, same problem. Went back to logging in as admin, problem disappears!
· June 18th, 2008 · 3:33 pm · Permalink
Hi Stephen,
And that’s exactly what you would expect to happen in both XP and Vista. But in Vista you can be running as admin and one day it will stop working. In other words one day you’ll get this error while running as Admin. It’s not an ID-10-T. issue
For example, my anti-virus is locked out right now on my Vista instance if I turn UAC back on. Even when I run as Admin! It won’t allow me to save the new virus definitions because it’s set to read only permission. But that’s just an application. I have a folder with some files in it that are stuck to read only permission, no matter what I do, even on Admin.
And trust me when I say I’m not the only one experiencing this issue. This one article alone gets several thousands unique visitors each month. It’s very prevalent. If you look at Johann before I chimed in, he’s experiencing the very same issue. Most of the comments are similar, people with Admin privilege not being to change the permissions.
When you first describe this to people who haven’t worked with Vista the reaction is the same as yours. And it should be. Unfortunately that’s not the issue, it’s a lot more complex than that. Like me, until you get bitten by the issue it really seems like an ID-10-T issue
· June 24th, 2008 · 4:25 am · Permalink
“So it should be. When you install it for the user anything that needs modifying should go into the users documents and settings folder.”
I have an application which is trying to write to the
users\documents folder and I am being told I cannot because it is read-only. I disabled UAC and I can now write to this folder. Seriously this is unbelievable that UAC can prevent you from writing to the folder which is created by default for a user to write to. Even though the user is an administrator they are still unable to remove the read-only check box from the users\documents folder with UAC enabled!
Also in reference to UAC in general it is poor old fashioned UI design to have an OK message popup. A programmer should always assume that a user will just OK a message and so should not use this as a method to prevent execution.
How many copies of IE have you seen where less competent users have the yahoo and google toolbars installed and do not use the features of either and do not understand how to uninstall them. Yes they all clicked OK to the message because they did not understand the consequences, the same is true of UAC.
Essentially be definition UAC offers little in terms of protection and a lot in terms of irritation.
· August 10th, 2008 · 7:14 pm · Permalink
[...] state. How do I change? - HEXUS.community discussion forums windows vista general read only files FollowSteph.com - Windows Vista Read-Only Or try the tips from this thread… Can’t find files outside LW __________________ If you dont [...]
· August 18th, 2008 · 10:49 pm · Permalink
If after completing all of the above and the file continues to not grant permission, like for me, try this, for some crazy reason after trying everything this worked to change the file from read only (make sure to disable uac and you have full control): when your box is checked to read only, leave it and click hidden instead, the file will dissapear but you can still access it in menu, then reclick on properties, click on read only and hidden files, apply, and ok. After hours of tooling with fisher price fp3 player song list i finally was able to see the files, this little player has been a nightmare for software, if anyone else is having problems with this gadget there is good suggestions at:http://mnteractive.com/archive/fischer-price-fp3-player-headaches-for-dad/ I’m not finshed yet, took several hours to figure out how to take the read attribute off! lol
· August 19th, 2008 · 1:40 am · Permalink
Sorry Stephen.
I came to get on the gripe list for a short. I run a small Lighting/sound/mobile dj equipment firm in Rockford Il. We use computers to run dj/karaoke and stage lighting for outdoor and arena shows.
Picture this- appox 10,000 people in a county fair grandstand saturday night main stge show,where two computers are in control of eveything and suddenly as if on a cue, the whole thing just dies.
Vista and the same problem you are all having with read only writes was the death knoll. to make matters worse, we just built two computers based on the AMD780g chipset.
Unfortunately because of MS wanting to separate cross ties with direct X 10, there will not be a patch or anything to allow XP uses to access direct x 10 language.
This means a whole lot of current HARDWARE will not support xp, in any form, so we are stuck with vista here, so theres no turning back.Unfortunately, our older chipsets and video cards will not support the vista “UPGRADE” if you want to call it that.
What happened to us is that the lighting ap which uses an xml file in its read write process failed to run, cause in mid show, vista suddenly decided to kick in “read only” to all its internal drives on the master rig, and we went dark in about ten seconds.
Promoters, musicians and patrons screamed, and they still are.
This is just nuts. uac on off makes no difference, neither did sp1. We run Norton Ghost and can reboot right before a show, but who knows when and why or what causes it to change when it does.
All i know is it has cost me an account and a tidy sum, partly for the equipment, and ten times that for the show that failed.
add me to the B—- list!
· August 19th, 2008 · 12:01 pm · Permalink
Hi John,
I have to admit, your experience is the most painful (and expensive) I’ve heard related to this issue!!!
It’s amazing how such small little design decisions can have such large ramifications.
If only there was a guaranteed way to turn it off 100% of the time. I could almost live with all the other issues, but this one is critical. It can completely shutdown your box and random times. And there’s nothing you can do about. It almost feels like the Twilight Zone episode with William Shatner (Nightmare at 20,000 feet) where the gremlin is teasing him through the window of the plane and he knows something will happen at any time, but not when.