Vista - File permissions and UAC

After switching to vista I plugged in my external harddrive where I stored all of my documents etc when I was using XP. However once setup I found a was without privleges to my files.
I did as I would do in XP, take ownership of the drive and make sure I have full permission. I did this using the GUI and by command line, they both complete sucessfully however when I go to open a file, a picture for example I will get a message saying I dont have privlages to access it.

But if I open paint for example (run as administrator) I can then open the same file!

My account is an administrator and there are no other users on this PC,
I found if I disable UAC I can access evrything as normal.

I want to keep UAC enabled, is there anyway to access the files/take ownership fully?
Cheers, Jamie.

"JamieThompson" <guest@xxxxxx-email.com> wrote in message
news:656adbb7042b8bf5d8266d920c99d8f3@xxxxxx-gateway.com...Your account may be able to access the 'run as adnin' function, but Vista
doesn't let you actually BE the admin unless you activate and use the hidden
admin account.
They call it security...
once you have edited the permissions/ownership on the files (as
administrator) you should have full access.
If you are changing permissions from the command line, did you run 'cmd' as
admin?
--
A Professional Amateur...If anyone knew it all, none of would be here!
CarGodZeroOne@xxxxxx
Change Alpha to Numeric to reply

Ahah!
It appears that I was taking control of the harddive but not the files listed in it!
Solution:Replaceing f:\ with your file location and Jamie with your account username!
Thanks for the reply too!

I read with interest Jamie Thompson's problem with having administrator privileges. I have the same problem but want to keep UAC on if possible. It is MY computer, MY folders, MY photos but I am not allowed to move them or rename them! I have gone in and changed the read only access, I have changed it in the Share section and still it won't let me. Why? I'm afraid I didn't understand the reply to the other thread and would need step-by-step instructions!! How do you 'run CMD as admin' for example? I have myself as the administrator on this laptop, there is also a guest account (switched off) and one I don't understand called ASP.NET Machine Account - Administrator (where did that come from??). Help please!! I am so frustrated that I am starting to hate Vista (not my choice to start with and I have wasted countless hours trying to do things on my own laptop) and am ready to throw the whole thing out of the window. I just want full control of my own property! I hope someone can help. Thank you all.

I'm not sure if you need to log in as the main admin or not. But this problem happened to re-occur for me and this is how I fixed it.

Firstly you need to activate the admin account. To do this got to the start menu, and in the search box type cmd this will show the command prompt in the result, right click and run as administrator. UAC will pop up to confirm your action.

Now type, Net user administrator /active:yes
This will activate the 'hidden' admin account, now switch users, or log off. Either will do, make sure you close any open files.
This time log in as the administrator from the logon screen.

Again open up cmd, run as the admin as you did before.
The commands are
takeown /f F:\
where f:\ is your file location.
It will say you now own the location, but you still need to give access rites.
the next command is
icacls f:\ /grant Jamie:F /T
where f:\ is your file location.

This should solve your problem go back to your main account and you should be able to access all your files. However, if you find it hasn't completed properly like I did, I found it didn't like to access special folders for some reason so I had to run the icacls command again using f:\My Music etc, it worked fine.

Again, I don't know if you really need to do it from the administrator account. That's just how I did it. Seems to do the job!
Once your finished you can disable the admin account again by changing the command to
Net user administrator /active:no
Hope this helps,
Jamie.

JamieThompson wrote:
Really, all you had to do as admin not even using the hidden super user
admin was to use the Security tab off of Folder or File Properties using
Explore, go to the folder or file and with the account Jamie add it to
the folder or file with the same rights as Administrators
(machinename\administrators). If one doesn't see the Security tab, then
one disables Simple File Sharing.

This doesn't work the same way as XP does, I tired it myself and found it would take ownership and grand full rites and I would be refused access rites when opening a file however I would still have full control and ownership. Therefore it was necessary to do it the way I outlined.

JamieThompson wrote:No, it is not necessary to do what you did, because I have faced that
bullet. All I ever had to do is make sure that the same account that I
used to login with, which was part of the Administrators group was also
added as User (machinename\bee) to the file of folder and problem
solved. NTFS is NTFS on XP or Vista.

Ah right, I stand corrected =] I must have been going wrong somewhere!

JamieThompson wrote:I didn't say you were doing something wrong. All I said is that you
didn't have to take the long path that you took to do a simple task of
setting permissions on a folder or file, when all you had to do was add
your login account Jameie (machinename\jamie) on the folder or file and
grant the permissions of Full rights.

In this regard, XP and Vista are different in regards to UAC being
enabled it seems. With XP, an *user* account with the account being part
of the Administrator group, the user admin account has Full rights.

On Vista with UAC is enabled, user admin account doesn't have full admin
right. In some cases, Vista looks at user admin as being in the
Administrators (machinename\administrators), and it also looks at User
(machinename\users), because the *user* admin account is part of that
group as well. And that's where a conflict between the two accounts will
start happening, because Administrators group has Full access while
Users group doesn't have full access. And both of these accounts are on
every folder or file.

On Vista it seems with UAC enabled in some cases, Users group rights can
supercede the Administrators rights, because *user* admin is part
Administrators group, and it is also part of the Users group, as User.
Users group on the machine doesn't have Full rights, like
Administrators, and there is the conflict, because Vista is looking at
rights in both groups for the logged-in account.

Now, one could go to Users (machinename\users) and give it Full rights
to match the Administrators group, but that would mean anyone that logs
into the machine would have Full access rights; that's not so good.

So, one can just add the account they are logged in with to the folder
or file, with them being part of the Administrator group and add their
individual user account to the folder or file with Full rights to match
their Administrators group rights.

One adds Jamie (machinename\jamie) account to the file or folder with
Full rights to match Administrators group rights.


--------

Hey, I am Jamie, and I am part of the Administrators group. Why don't I
have Full rights on everything in NTFS? But wait, me (Jamie) is just
another *user*, and Users group doesn't have Full access rights like
Administrators Group has.

I am Jamie logged in on the machine, and I am User/Admin. But I am not
Admin with Full rights. I'll fix this problem by adding Jamie
(machinename\jamie) to the folder or file with Full rights to match my
Administrators group rights.

I am User/Admin Jamie with Full rights as User/Admin Jamie, and I got
Full rights in both groups. Vista, you better not stop me now. ;-)