Setting permissions

I'm the administrator on my home computer. I have some files that I need to
delete but I keep getting the Access Denied and that I don't have permission
to access the files. How do I set up permission for all the folders and sub
folders on my computer? I don't want to have to go in to each file and set
permissions individually, I just want to do it once and never have to worry
about it again. Is there a step-by-step that I can follow to accomplish
this? I set the permissions on the parent folder and then I try to delete
the folder and it tells me I don't have access to a sub folder, so then I go
to the sub folder and give myself permission and then I get the same message
again on another sub folder. I'm tired of doing it. Please help. LOL

> I'm the administrator on my home computer. I have some files that I need to
> delete but I keep getting the Access Denied and that I don't have permission
> to access the files. How do I set up permission for all the folders and sub
> folders on my computer? I don't want to have to go in to each file and set
> permissions individually, I just want to do it once and never have to worry
> about it again. Is there a step-by-step that I can follow to accomplish
> this? I set the permissions on the parent folder and then I try to delete
> the folder and it tells me I don't have access to a sub folder, so then I go
> to the sub folder and give myself permission and then I get the same message
> again on another sub folder. I'm tired of doing it. Please help. LOL

You really, really, do not want to turn off all file system security. It
would be a really bad idea.

What you need to do is set permissions properly on the things you need to
access. If you hit the Advanced button in the permissions dialog. and then
hit the "Edit..." button, you will get a dialog with a few more options. one
is to "Replace all existing inheritable permissions on all descendants with
inheritable permissions from this object." That option will propagate all the
permissions you set on the parent folder down to all the children.

Please, do not do this on the entire hard drive. Do it on the things that
you need to delete, when you need to delete them.

I had a similar problem and this is how I solved it.
1. Click Start
2. Control Panel
3. User Accounts
4. Make changes to your User Account
5.Turn User Account control on or off
6. Uncheck the box...Use User account control (UAC) to help protect your
computer.
7. Click OK button

Thats it. Now you have control of your computer.

NEXT... to keep from logging in every time you turn on the computer,

Still in control panel...
1. Click Parental Controls
2. At the computer Administrator icon click to remove password or (no
password).

Let me know if this fixes your problem.
Tom

In light of what Jesper said about not removing all security restrictions on
your computer, my wife and I are the only ones that use our computer and so
I am not worried about anyone else misusing my computer. I do not need the
security to protect me from myself. If someone else is using your computer
and you don't trust them, then by all means leave the security intact.

> In light of what Jesper said about not removing all security restrictions on
> your computer, my wife and I are the only ones that use our computer and so
> I am not worried about anyone else misusing my computer. I do not need the
> security to protect me from myself. If someone else is using your computer
> and you don't trust them, then by all means leave the security intact.

Still, if you disable UAC the way you suggest you also disable an awful lot
of the security enhancements in Windows Vista. For example, you will be
reading all e-mail messages and browse all web sites as an administrator.
That means that any malware you should happen to accidentally click on will
run as an administrator.

This type of thing was the number one cause of malware infections on Windows
XP. These technologies are here to help you run as a non-administrator more
of the time, to avoid having the slightest misclick result in your bank
account balance being transferred to Moscow. I'm not making that one up
either. It has happened, far too often.

In message <1EAE724D-C62C-4C6A-A30A-1A3BF343DDE5@microsoft.com> Jesper
<Jesper@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:

>Still, if you disable UAC the way you suggest you also disable an awful lot
>of the security enhancements in Windows Vista. For example, you will be
>reading all e-mail messages and browse all web sites as an administrator.
>That means that any malware you should happen to accidentally click on will
>run as an administrator.
>
>This type of thing was the number one cause of malware infections on Windows
>XP. These technologies are here to help you run as a non-administrator more
>of the time, to avoid having the slightest misclick result in your bank
>account balance being transferred to Moscow. I'm not making that one up
>either. It has happened, far too often.

While you're not wrong, you know what the number one infection vector
during my days with XP was? The top three is as follows:

1)
2)
3)

No infections. Zero. No reliance on definitions which are, by
definition, out of date when they are needed most, during an outbreak.

It's not for everyone, but for those that know what they're doing, UAC
isn't needed.

That being said, I've left it enabled since it's not really a big deal
either, I rarely see more then a couple popups a day, and usually
because I'm constantly tinkering with something.
--
Insert something clever here.

> While you're not wrong, you know what the number one infection vector
> during my days with XP was? The top three is as follows:
>
> 1)
> 2)
> 3)

I had the same experience. Sadly, we were in the minority.

> No infections. Zero. No reliance on definitions which are, by
> definition, out of date when they are needed most, during an outbreak.

Anti-* does not work for many of the modern attacks. The definition update
cycles are far too slow.

> It's not for everyone, but for those that know what they're doing, UAC
> isn't needed.

No, and you could quite easily claim that eventually malware will catch up
with UAC and it will not provide protection even for those who need it. That
much is quite clear. UAC is not primarily designed to protect against
attacks. It is designed to increase the ability to run as a non-admin, which
DOES protect against many attacks. By leaving UAC on, and demanding of
vendors that they write software that works properly with it, those "that
know what they are doing" can help those that do not be safer by helping
reduce the number of situations where you must be an admin.

> That being said, I've left it enabled since it's not really a big deal
> either, I rarely see more then a couple popups a day, and usually
> because I'm constantly tinkering with something.

Glad to hear it, and your experience is quite like mine.

Wow, thank you all for all your input. Ok, I do understand about the UAC and
I have no intentions of turning that off. It's just that I ran into a
situation where I needed to restore a backup file that I had saved in the
Documents folder and when I tried to access that file in Documents, I was
greeted with that silly message that I don't have permission to access
Documents. As Administrator I think that is the silliest message I could
get.

I too, like both Tom and Jesper have never experienced an infection but
still was glad to read about UAC and am not bothered those pop-ups. It's
just that I have some junk files laying around my hard drive and I want to
get rid of them and they don't appear in the Add/Remove, so I have to do it
the other way, but I don't want to get stuck on all the sub-folders. And by
giving myself permissions on the entire hard drive won't stop UAC from
popping up, will it?

Thanks again for all your sage advice, I really do appreciate it and it's a
great learning experience.

"Jesper" wrote:

> > While you're not wrong, you know what the number one infection vector
> > during my days with XP was? The top three is as follows:
> >
> > 1)
> > 2)
> > 3)
>
> I had the same experience. Sadly, we were in the minority.
>
> > No infections. Zero. No reliance on definitions which are, by
> > definition, out of date when they are needed most, during an outbreak.
>
> Anti-* does not work for many of the modern attacks. The definition update
> cycles are far too slow.
>
> > It's not for everyone, but for those that know what they're doing, UAC
> > isn't needed.
>
> No, and you could quite easily claim that eventually malware will catch up
> with UAC and it will not provide protection even for those who need it. That
> much is quite clear. UAC is not primarily designed to protect against
> attacks. It is designed to increase the ability to run as a non-admin, which
> DOES protect against many attacks. By leaving UAC on, and demanding of
> vendors that they write software that works properly with it, those "that
> know what they are doing" can help those that do not be safer by helping
> reduce the number of situations where you must be an admin.
>
> > That being said, I've left it enabled since it's not really a big deal
> > either, I rarely see more then a couple popups a day, and usually
> > because I'm constantly tinkering with something.
>
> Glad to hear it, and your experience is quite like mine.

But the MS News server is using your computer right now. When you read this
I am using your computer. If I trick you into doing X or there is a security
flaw in OE then I can also access those files.

Don't always think local. Think of the world. The only safe thing to do is
not use passwords because only local people can do things without passwords
not remote people.

I'm not saying what you should do. I'm just pointing out your risk assesment
is based on wrong hypothsis (local vs remote).

"Tom" <Tom@Metroplex.com> wrote in message
news:eYJKh.3599$Qw.515@newssvr29.news.prodigy.net...
> In light of what Jesper said about not removing all security restrictions
> on
> your computer, my wife and I are the only ones that use our computer and
> so
> I am not worried about anyone else misusing my computer. I do not need the
> security to protect me from myself. If someone else is using your computer
> and you don't trust them, then by all means leave the security intact.
>
>

Tom wrote:

> I had a similar problem and this is how I solved it.
> 1. Click Start
> 2. Control Panel
> 3. User Accounts
> 4. Make changes to your User Account
> 5.Turn User Account control on or off
> 6. Uncheck the box...Use User account control (UAC) to help protect
> your computer.
> 7. Click OK button
>
> Thats it. Now you have control of your computer.


I don't recommend doing this at all. Over and above the security
implications of turning off UAC, it has other undesirable side effects. For
example, some program installations (Adobe Reader 8 is one) will fail, and
fail mysteriously, without any indication of what the problem is.

--
Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
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