G'Day All.
I have joined this forum just so I can post my fix to these access denied folder problems...
Firstly, I was having the same problem many others do. I'm the only user on my Vista box, and I am the Administrator. Attempting to click on any folder that had a small arrow over the bottom left corner of the folder icon in Windows Explorer caused the Access Denied error. I tried setting UAC on / off, disabling Defender, AVG Anti Virus etc - nothing helped.
Then I discovered the DOS command TAKEOWN and used the /? option to get help.
I began by going to the START / SEARCH command and typing CMD (without pressing ENTER). cmd.exe appears at the top of the pop-up window.
Next, RIGHT CLICK on cmd.exe and choose RUN AS ADMINISTRATOR (This is necessary, even if you are already an Admin User)
Once the command window appears, enter CD C:\
(Change Directory to the root of C
Now enter TAKEOWN /?
(Displays HELP for the command)
After reading the help, I determined the following options should do the trick:
TAKEOWN /f * /r /a
Running the above command, the DOS window scrolled through the file list until it came to a folder that was causing problems. It said:
Do you want to replace the directory permissions with permissions granting you full control (Yes / No / Cancel). I chose YES.
The scrolling now continued until it crashed on a LNK file.
Even though it did not alter the properties on every file, the folders had all been reset.
I exited the command window, restarted Vista, and now all the folders are accessible.
Hopefully this will help some other people.
Regards, Greg.