I just started using Windows 8 and I’ve found a few frustrating issues. If you are using 3rd party apps (for me that’s alt.binz and 7-zip) that do folder and file modification outside of your documents directory you may be having issues. I use my external storage drives for a lot of work and have for many years. Some of the folders and files in these drives are 10 years old and have permissions to match. This was not an issue in Windows 7, but 8 seems to be Linux level specific on who can or can not access a file and make modifications. This can be both a good and a bad thing, but it was hindering my progress, so we will discuss how to disable that.
The easiest fix is to right click on your specific drive or folder that you are having trouble with, goto the security tab and click edit. Click on the users box and give full control and press apply. This should enumerate every file and folder (described as subcontainers) on the drive (or inside the folder). This has worked for me on some drives. However, occasionally you will get an enumeration or access denied error from the “Applying Security” window. This has happened to me on several occasions. Usually, this means that inheritance is disabled on whatever folder or file the error occurred on. Find that folder, goto it’s security tab, click advanced, and on the bottom of the window that opens there will be a button that says “Enable inheritance”. This means that the security for this folder will be grabbed from the parent folder. I then hit apply and delete all the security specific to that folder (the inheritance category will say none instead of the drive letter) and leave all the inherited security so it does not conflict.
Tada, I am now able to right click on my .rar archives and unrar them with 7-zip without running the program with administrator privileges. I don’t know why the sudden changes to NTFS security, but man is it a pain. I will leave you with some concerns about this method. 1) please do not do this on your system drive (C:\). There are security settings in place in your Windows and other folders for a reason (spyware, malware) and 2) please use the users group or add your individual user (localmachine\username or just username when adding the security object) instead of adding the Everyone user group. The Everyone group consists of guests and network users as well and we don’t want random people who broke into your wireless to be able to delete your files, lets keep it to local users on your machine. Do what you want, but just a thought. I hate posting on here, but when it takes me an hour to fix something I want it to be easier on the next user.
Thaks for this!