Win 7 & Permissions

I'm running Win7 Home Premium.
1. Beginning with Libraries>Documents>My Documents: My Music, My Pictures, & My Videos all have a little blue arrow associated with them. When I click on any of these, I get a message: "You don't have permission to access this folder. Click Continue to permanently get access to this folder". Cool. I click Continue. Where....I get a message:
"You have been denied permission to access this folder. To gain access to this folder you will need to use the security tab." Cool. So, I click on the security tab and...I highlight one of the options under the heading 'Group or user names'. I highlight the option 'Everyone'. All 'Permissions for Everyone' under the option 'Allow' are checked except for the last one - Special Permissions, which is grayed out. I click OK and exit the My Pictures Property box. Again, I double click on My Pictures. Bam! Same issue. Has anyone recently read Flann O'Brien's novel The Third Policeman? You might then understand how I'm feeling about this new and 'improved' OS.

2. Same scenario in Public Documents: My Music, My Pictures, & My Videos all have a pad lock icon next to them. Is there something in these folders that Microsoft is trying to protect me from?

3. Below Desktop, Libraries, Homegroup, is - that's me. Here I find that: Application Data, Cookies, Local Settings, My Documents, NetHood, PrintHood, Recent, SendTo, Start Menu and Templates all have that curious little blue arrow associated with them. When I click on any of these folders, I get an angry message that access is denied to any of these folders.

Any insights on both what is going on and/or how to resolve these security issues would be greatly appreciated.

I'm sure there are good reasons why I am being denied access to these various folders. I know that Microsoft has my bests interests in it's heart. I'd just like to know why.

Thanks.

 

No, there's no good reason for Windows to behave that way, and a normal Windows installation will not give you these kind of messages. You should indeed have full access to the folders appearing in your library. Are we talking about a fresh installation/out of the box laptop here, or did somebody "work" on this before?

 

Good question. My apologies for not providing other perhaps essential ingredients.
1. I have a Dell Studio 1555. Only 3 months old.
2. The HD began to fail. Won't go into the details - just scraping sounds and some freeze ups.
3. After a lengthy discussion with a Dell 'consultant' from the Punjab region of India, he agreed that the HD was on its way out.
4. Received another HD yesterday. Using Macrium Reflect, I created a ghost partition on an external HD.
5. I installed the new HD and using a recovery CD went into Boot mode and successfully (I'll qualify that ) brought over my ghost partition.
6. Some of my friends have argued that I probably should have gone ahead and installed the new HD with Image because the ghost partition might have a bad sector or some such. Dunno....

I won't rule out starting from scratch again - dumping the ghost partition and installing the image. Any suggestions will be gratefully accepted.

 

Hmm, and I am probably correct in assuming that you had none of these problems with the original hard drive, right? This really sounds like something was wrong with this disk image. Hard to tell from here what it is, in particular since I am not familiar with the software you mentioned. From where I stand, I would strongly recommend wiping the new hard drive, and performing a fresh install (after backing up your personal files you want to keep, of course).

If I had your system in front of me, I might be able to tell you more, but even in that case it is likely that I would end up with the same recommendation. Once you have a situation where things are broken due to a bad image, there's really no telling what else might be wrong, and you might only discover these other problems much later, when a reinstall would cost you a lot more work to reinstall and reconfigure all your software.

P.S.: Sorry, maybe I misunderstood what you wrote: If you still have the intact image of the new hard drive you were sent, and can use that, then you could of course go ahead and use it.

 

I'm guessing that you mean with the original OS (before Ghosting)? In which case, I think not. To be sure: I'm still trying to understand the way Win7 is configured. You know: the libraries and all of that. But no. I don't recall these sort of blocks before.

From where I stand, I would strongly recommend wiping the new hard drive, and performing a fresh install (after backing up your personal files you want to keep, of course).

If I had your system in front of me, I might be able to tell you more, but even in that case it is likely that I would end up with the same recommendation. Once you have a situation where things are broken due to a bad image, there's really no telling what else might be wrong, and you might only discover these other problems much later, when a reinstall would cost you a lot more work to reinstall and reconfigure all your software.

P.S.: Sorry, maybe I misunderstood what you wrote: If you still have the intact image of the new hard drive you were sent, and can use that, then you could of course go ahead and use it.[/QUOTE]

 

To the OP:
Before you go backing up files and wiping out the harddrive, are there any other unusual problems besides accessing those mentioned folders? Like programs acting weird, etc.

Have you already tried taking ownership of the files? Its easy and fast, so worth a shot.
Go to:
\the_folder_with_problems > Properties (of folder) > tab_Security > Advanced (button) > tab_Owner > Edit

 

I'm guessing that you mean with the original OS (before Ghosting)? In which case, I think not. To be sure: I'm still trying to understand the way Win7 is configured. You know: the libraries and all of that. But no. I don't recall these sort of blocks before.

I am grudgingly taking this position.

I am grudgingly reaching that conclusion as well...Sigh.

Yes. I do not have a lot of experience creating Images. Macrium has been lauded in some circles. That doesn't mean much if somehow my image got corrupted.
It was a pretty large <file> about 70 GB and took quite a while to create. Who knows what could have happened along the way.

I suppose that a plan would be simply to reinstall the original Image that was on the HDD that came from Dell. Now, where would I go from here? I did not get a recovery DVD disc. Just the HDD...

As per my previous question: I need to find out where the intact image might be located. Or... could I employ the OS reinstallation DVD that originally came with the Notebook?

Thanks.

 

Sounds like you really overwrote the original image on the hard drive they sent you. In that case, yes, you can reinstall Windows from the DVD that came with the notebook. After installing Windows, you'll also have to reinstall your drivers. You should have received another DVD (or CD) that contains the drivers you need as well.

 

Understood. I do have another DVD with drivers. It is not the end all if I have to take this measure. My desktop PC is my main computer. The note book is primarily used in the field for astronomy related stuff. My thought is to hang on to the Ghost partition for awhile and see if anything breaks. Meanwhile, I might try M3lvn's suggestion and make a stab at editing permissions.

Thanks to all. On several occasions this forum has proved to be very helpful. I feel for anyone who chances upon Dell Support.

 

You know, I don't understand why this behavior is occurring. Here is what I did. From Libraries>My Documents. Whoops, let me pause here. Under '' there are found two My Documents folders. The first, I am able to open. As far as I can discern all of my folders successfully made the journey from the ghost partition to the new HDD. However, as I mentioned in a previous post several of the folders are not accessible - they have a tiny blue arrow associated with the folder icon. An example is: MY MUSIC.

About the the second My Documents folder located in '': it also has a blue arrow attached. If I click on any of these type of folders, a message pops up saying I do not have permission to access the folder. Curiously enough, highlighting any of these folder provides the following information at the bottom of the screen: the folder icon, and the State: which is variously reported to be Shared with: "Everyone", & "Homegroup". Well, be that as it may...

Following your instructions, I right clicked on the folder>properties>security>advanced>...
Under Permission Entries, I find that 'Allow' is associated with all Names (Adm, , SYSTEM HomeUsers, the commission set up several years ago to investigate un-American activities...) The Permission type varies slightly mainly it is Full Control.

None of this information is having an effect on whether or not I am able to access these folders. Although the way Win7 is handling some these folders is perplexing, I want to be clear is saying that I am not blocked from accessing my documents. Since from Libraries>My Documents, I can access my stuff.

Another curious example of not having permissions is Public Documents folder. There My Music, My Pictures, &My Videos have a padlock icon associated with them.

Thanks.

PS: You or anyone reading this must be scratching their head. I just did something that I really did not expect I would be able to do because 'I don't have permissions'. I right clicked on everyone of these folders that either has a padlock or a blue arrow and deleted them! Strange. I am not allowed to open them but I can delete them.. I think I solved my problem: now I don't have to stare at them anymore.