Win7 Permissions

[Greyskull]

Hi all,

Anyone else having random "Access is Denied" issue on windows 7? Coz even though UAC is off, the user I'm using is an administrator and have full ownership of a folder [My Music, Documents, Downloads, etc..] I keep having a strange and very random "Acess is Denied" issue when trying to save files to these locations. And the strange part about this is, when it fail and I re-try to save again, it will work successfully. Anyone got ideas on how to solve this?

I'm using Win7 64Bit SP1 edition and it is fully updated.

Thanks,

[chris1990]

have you got enough hdd space, and have you tried adding your username to the permissions list with full permissions.

[Greyskull]

I've got tons of space..with full permissions. It just seems weird that it randomly saying "access denied" and the strange thing is, it happens most on file sizes that are tiny.. 0_o

[Lord Orwell]

you need to do a full virus scan. You will get an access is denied if the file is locked by another process, and that is likely because the virus is implanting itself in the files in question or even just checking them to see if they are executables so it can infect them. Win 7 will normally ask you to provide elevated permission unless it's a locked file issue.

[Greyskull]

hmm..PC is clean of virus / malwares / spywares...
I'm sure its not the AV locking the file either because it happens whether it is on / off as well..

[Lord Orwell]

i would still try a trial of a 2nd product just to double-check. It's possible you may have a new one that isn't in the definition files. However truthfully, even microsoft security essentials would trigger an alert just based on the locking files.

Is your system fully updated? There could be some odd problem with the driver that controls your hard drive.

[Greyskull]

I've tried with Kaspersky, Eset, ActiveMalwareBytes, Spybot, a few tools I have, sys is clean
..even on a newly installed OS, I have this happening :/

Now my sys is juz running Eset..and all updated fully, but still no avail..any more ideas?

thnx

[Lord Orwell]

Do you have bitlocker installed? Does your bios encrypt your hard drive? How about checking to see if your drive will pass a s.m.a.r.t. check. If it's doing it on a new system install, it's quite possible that the problem is with hardware. If the drive is writing slowly it could be crc errors that the OS is correcting for on the fly.

[Greyskull]

not installed bit locker and encryption isn't being done on the hd. It passed the smart check fine and the drive don't contain bad sectors either...tried reinstalling xp and ran that before for a month and twas working all nice to test things but didn't have the errors.

Strange enough, it only seems to happen on the folders that I actually own i.e. Downloads, Documents, My Pictures, My Music...those folders are the ones I seem to have the errors on...say if I save on a different location, everything seems to be ok..

It's really doing my head in it happened again this evening when I tried to save a 42Kb file on My Documents folder

[Lord Orwell]

are you perhaps sharing these files? Maybe it's some issue with shadow copies? As a matter of fact, how much % space free does your hard drive actually have?

[Greyskull]

The folders 'My documents' and 'My Downloads' aren't shared but 'My Music' and 'My Pictures' are being streamed to my consoles.

As for the free space, still got 275GB left..newly defragged as well

[Lord Orwell]

try turning off sharing. That would be the first thing i do. I suspect something is locking the file while updating its directory list.

[Greyskull]

KK, will give that a whirl, I'll see if anything comes up for a week or two and I shall let ya know.

But I don't see a reason as to why the unshared folders like 'My Documents' and 'My Downloads folder' causing the issue though...

[Lord Orwell]

me either, but it never hurts to cover all bases.

[Greyskull]

Sadly, this option still didn't work

What I don't b****y get is, it works one time, doesn't work next time but if you try again, will work :@ its drivin me nuts!!!

[Lord Orwell]

ok here's another idea. How are you navigating to the folders? There are shortcuts in the root directory that look like the folders but aren't. I've encountered "access denied" numerous times clicking on them. They only exist for backwards compatibility with old programs and the os is supposed to forward all action to the real location, but fails often to actually do so.

[stanav]

I've run into this same problem recently (or at least I think it's the same based on your description). It turned out that the problem relates to Windows Media Center AND HomeGroup. If you add those directories in any of WMC libraries (Music, Movies, Videos, Pictures...) AND you also share the folders with your HomeGroup, the problem pops up. To verify this, open an effected folder in windows explorer and right-click on any empty spot in it to show the context menu. Move the mouse pointer to the "New" option. If the only thing you see is "Folder" with an UAC icon (instead of a long list of stuff) then this is the same problem as the one I've had.
To fix it:
1. Go to Settings in WMC and remove those affected directories from WMC libraries.
2. Unshare those affected directories with your HomeGroup
3. Verify that the problem's gone doing the right-click > New trick above. If you see a long list of stuff then the problem's gone.
4. Re-share the directories with your HomeGroup. DO NOT re-add them to WMC's libraries.

[Greyskull]

ok here's another idea. How are you navigating to the folders? There are shortcuts in the root directory that look like the folders but aren't. I've encountered "access denied" numerous times clicking on them. They only exist for backwards compatibility with old programs and the os is supposed to forward all action to the real location, but fails often to actually do so.

Sometimes I just click on the 'Favourites' location or just type the location straight to the address bar..but I think I know which folders you mean...

My friend seems to think it maybe something to do with a UAC bug, because according to him, when he did two install of Win7 on his machine, on the first one he installed some applications with UAC on, then after a while he swithced UAC off..with this set-up he noticed that the apps that he installed with UAC off seems to be having these 'Access denied' issues, but not on those apps that were installed with it off already...
So he wiped his hd clean, and did a fresh install, this time turning UAC off as his first task..and ever since, he didn't get this Access denied error.

The only problem with a clean install is, I've now setup my PC to the way I want it to run and it just seems a big drag to this whole thing again

I've run into this same problem recently (or at least I think it's the same based on your description). It turned out that the problem relates to Windows Media Center AND HomeGroup. If you add those directories in any of WMC libraries (Music, Movies, Videos, Pictures...) AND you also share the folders with your HomeGroup, the problem pops up. To verify this, open an effected folder in windows explorer and right-click on any empty spot in it to show the context menu. Move the mouse pointer to the "New" option. If the only thing you see is "Folder" with an UAC icon (instead of a long list of stuff) then this is the same problem as the one I've had

Thanks for the input but I've had issues with folders that aren't shared at all...and also I don't have UAC icon on that folder because my UAC is off.
oh and I dont use WMC at all, homegroup I did, but throughout testing for the sake of it, I have disabled all sharing and homegroup...but still no luck

[Lord Orwell]

windows 7 can be installed start to finish with all updates in about an hour.

That's not really relevant though.

Does your hard drive pass a s.m.a.r.t. check?

[Greyskull]

I seem to have solved the issue, strangely after switching UAC back on, the problem hasn't happened since my last post....
touch wood...i'll see if there are any more errors after a few more testing...