GameBanshee Forums

Edit: Complete revamp of post.

Windows Vista gives a lot of files a Read Only attribute for no clear reason. If you remove the read only from a folder of file it deems important, it will instantly reapply it. Security or something I guess, I don't remember being asked for it.

Main problem: read-only tags in the Program Files directory. I need them gone, all of them, if I want to be able to properly access my files there. I'm trying to save games in Vampire Redemption, but I just can't get this done because Vista won't let me overwrite them.

Obstacle: User rights. I can't for dear life figure out how to give any user -even the Administrator- extra rights to modify, create or delete content in a folder of my choosing. Modifying user rights screens lead to greyed out modifying user rights screens that lead to similar greyed out modifying user rights screens that lead to similar.. etc.

I just don't get this. Even logged in as the Administrator I can't get anything done. What. The. Hell.

I completely rewrote the post and adding this extra reply so it doesn't go unnoticed. I could really use some help here.

Tricky wrote: Main problem: read-only tags in the Program Files directory. I need them gone, all of them, if I want to be able to properly access my files there. I'm trying to save games in Vampire Redemption, but I just can't get this done because Vista won't let me overwrite them.

Obstacle: User rights. I can't for dear life figure out how to give any user -even the Administrator- extra rights to modify, create or delete content in a folder of my choosing. Modifying user rights screens lead to greyed out modifying user rights screens that lead to similar greyed out modifying user rights screens that lead to similar.. etc.

I just don't get this. Even logged in as the Administrator I can't get anything done. What. The. Hell.

I also use Vista and I cannot remove the read-only tag either. Tried that once and it got re-applied.

Anyway, have you tried disabling the UAC? It can cause quite a lot of headaches even when doing a simple copy and paste or deleting a file.

And about the administrator account, are you using your original administrator account or the 'hidden' administrator account? Because the latter is the real admin account, not the former. There is a [url="http://news.cnet.com/8301-13880_3-9870793-68.html"]tutorial[/url] on CNet on how to access it. Tried it once and I was able to move/edit/delete files without any issues.

Thanks, I think that's just what I need. I don't think I am running the right Administrator account then. I read about the UAC, but I also read that simply disabling it isn't the right way to go about it. Either way, I couldn't ('right-wise') disable any services from any account last night so I wasn't able to try that out.

I spend about six hours on this last night and I got so frustrated I had trouble getting to sleep. I hate it when computers take over my life like that. At some point I will have to strip stuff like WGA, Windows Live and this idiotic account system and hope there will be any OS left to work with.

If my SO hadn't insisted I should keep on using Windows instead of Ubuntu Linux.. sigh.

I accessed the hidden Administrator account and I disabled the UAC. I know how to handle a computer safely enough to avoid problems in the future. While I was at it, I took the broom through the Services.msc list as well. Things are running a lot smoother now.

I still can't remove the read-only tag from folders though. Any ideas on what is causing that?

It seems that the "Attrib -r" command in console mode is doing what the Windows Shell can't. I still have to finetune it though. Whenever I 'attrib' a directory, it stops the entire process when it encounters a hidden file. Should be easy enough to overcome.

Thanks for the help, DesR85. I'm really getting things done now, it is such a relief.

This I loathe: I was able to do it last evening, but not today. So much lovely sense does that make. Still open to suggestions after all.

Summary of things I have tried since the previous post

1. I am in the actual Administrator account, everything I do should be run with Administrator privileges
2. I use attrib to remove all Read Only tags from all files in the Program Files directory and subdirectories
3. I get an access denied error message for ever directory it tries to modify
4. I am puzzled because I'm supposed to have Administrator rights now
5. I use the TakeOwn command to take complete ownership of Program Files - see: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/libr ... 10%29.aspx
6. I run the same attrib line again
7. I still get 'access denied'

What am I missing?

Windows automatically protects all the files in the program files, if you install an old program or game, you can have trouble with the user rights to a given file in the directory, a solution to that is either run the game in compatibility mode or simply install the game in a different folder than program files (make a game folder, for example).
There are some other solutions, but they are a lot more complicated.