One of our reader asked us this simple question in his mail to troublefixers

what is the fastest way to take file or folder ownership in vista ?

What is file/folder ownership?

The answer is simple, when you have the ownership of a file or folder in Windows, you can open, modify, add or delete contents from files and folders. If you don’t have ownership of a file or folder, you may get access denied errors in Windows.

See this articles for detail : Remove Access Denied Error From Folder

The most conventional way to take the file ownership is either through command prompt or through windows explorer and both of them are quite confusing to most of  the layman users. But there is a third easy way to take the ownership of any file or folder by adding the option Take Ownership on the right click context menu.

Lets discuss how implement this small hack to adding take ownership option in right click.

Fix:

In order to take ownership command to right click context menu, you just need to download the following registry key and merge into your windows registry by double clicking it.

Just in case if you want to remove the ownership option from right click context menu you can download and merge the registry key inside the zip archive.

Note: The registry key is inside the zip archive you will download

Download Take / Remove Ownership Archive [ Thanks HowToGeek ]

This content is just a summary, read the full article at ©2010 TroubleFixers - All about fixing computer troubles. All Rights Reserved.

One of my friend asked me how can he protect some of his folders on his pen drive so that he can only open those folders.

In short he wants to make some of his pen drive folders as private that only he can open those folders. 

After analyzing the problem completely, I was able to figure out a possible solution to his problem. We can actually make any of the folders on the pen drive protected and access denied to all the other users on including the users on other computer.

So, No one except you can open those folders on your pen drive instead they will see the message “Access Denied” when ever they try to open those folders. This protection will work even if some one take your pen drive and connect it to any other windows computer.

Let’s see how can you make some folder protected or access denied to other users.

Fix:

1. First make sure that your USB pen drive supports NTFS file system.

Note: if you don’t know how to check whether your pen drive supports NTFS File system then follow the next step you will come to know  

2. Backup all the data from your pen drive on your computer hard drive.

3. Right click on the Pen Drive Icon in My Computer, select format.

4. Now, select NTFS as file system, click the option which says quick format and click Ok.

5. Now open your pen drive and copy your data including private folders on the pen drive.

6. Right click on your private folders on your drive and select Properties and click the Security Tab.

7. Click on the Edit button to deny access permissions to all the other users.

8. Now, In order to deny the access permissions to all the other users, you will need to set deny permissions for everyone user group.

9. Click Apply and then Ok button after selecting the deny permissions through checkboxes.

10. That’s it, this folder on your pen drive will become access denied to all the users including you.

But you know how to remove the protection by un checking the checkboxes under Deny Permissions.

This content is just a summary, read the full article at ©2010 TroubleFixers - All about fixing computer troubles. All Rights Reserved.

One of our readers reported a problem, when he tried to access files located in the different user profile directory in vista, he got the message prompt saying access denied.

Why Access Files in other user account?

You must be thinking what is the need of this ,but it may be the case when you forgot the password of your account and you may have some very important files in your my documents or in some other user profiles folder.

Why Access denied?

In Windows Vista user accounts files are protected and private to the user itself by default, so no other account will have access to any directory or files located inside user profile folder.

For Example: When anyone try to open a protected folder, got a message prompt.

(see the image below)

(assuming C drive is where you have installed windows)

Fix:

But still there is a way through which you can access and make a back up of the files located in the protected directories inside the user profile folder.

In order to access files ,you will need to create a back up of the all the files inside the private directory and then restore these files to a different location using the created backup file.

Follow the procedure to take the back up of the protected files:

1. Right click on the drive in which the protected files are located and select properties

2. Click Next to skip past the opening page, choose Back up files and settings from the second page, and then click Next.

3. For most people, the My documents and settings option is a better choice. This selection preserves your data files (including e-mail messages and address books) and the personal settings stored in the Windows Registry.

4. If you know that you have data files stored outside your profile, click Let me choose what to back up. This option takes you to the Items to Back Up page

5. Now select the files you need to back up ,this will generate a backup file.

After the backup file has been created, you can it restore by double clicking on back up file form the back up process on a different location. This will remove all the access restrictions to the files.

We hope you will be able to access to your lost files and folders by following the above illustrated process. Hope this helps to fix the trouble.

This content is just a summary, read the full article at ©2010 TroubleFixers - All about fixing computer troubles. All Rights Reserved.

Do you get “Access denied” error message when you try to access some file or folder on a shared folder on a home or office network ?

This is one very commonly faced problems with computers using NTFS file system which most of the windows Xp computers used.

In such a case, when a person shares some folder on a network, then there is usually a read permission for all others. That means all other people, other than the owner of that shared folder can only read its contents and not modify them.

Why Access denied ?

Sometimes it happens that other computers on the network don’t have even the permission to read anything from shared folder (which is on other computer) specially when the person shared the file in my documents , or some file shared on his desktop but these files which lies in my documents or on desktop are private by default when you use windows XP with ntfs file system. This is why Access Denied error message is shown.
How to fix it ?

This problem can be fixed by providing read or read-write permission on the folder from the computer which actually contains the folder.

Fix:

Let us see the steps to fix the problem :

1. Open My computer, Go to Tools > Folder option , click on View tab.

2. In advance settings, un-check “use simple file sharing” as shown in image below. Click Ok.

3. Right click on the shared folder and click on Properties.

4. Click on Security tab on Properties window as shown in image below.

5. Click on Add… Button on this window, this will launch another window as shown below.

6. In this window type everyone and press enter. This will add a user called everyone in the group or user names window of security tab which means any one on the network can access the shared files now.

7. Click on the user named Everyone to set default permissions allowed for the folder and set the permission as shown in image below and click Ok.

These permissions will be applicable to everyone on the same network on which computer is right now. As an example the image below shows that everyone has a read and execute permission. It does not give write or modify permission.

You can decide on permission which you want to give to others on the network.

NOTE:This fix is meant for NTFS partitions only.

TIP: If you want to share the folder with only one or two users and not with everyone on the network, then simply write their usernames in step 6 above instead of everyone, and set the permission for that user as mentioned in step 7.

This content is just a summary, read the full article at ©2010 TroubleFixers - All about fixing computer troubles. All Rights Reserved.