Permissions Nightmares

A long time ago, I had a harddrive which was probably using XP, where I did things to the permissions. Presumably, I wanted to look inside of folders that were inaccessible and was able to do this by changing the permissions. I know this is a symptom of ransom ware, but since I remember a time when I wanted to look inside some of my folders like the system volume folder, I'm afraid I did this all to myself by changing the permissions.

Much later, long after I no longer used this old HD and its old OS, I wanted to back up the HD. I found I could not look in the folders without clicking on a warning pop-up which mentioned that I would need to make changes to the computer in order to look inside these folders. So I clicked on Continue, which seems to have led to a lot of little locks appearing and producing duplicate folders with slightly different names. These folders are appearing in my current Win7 OS, for instance under my user name.

Now I have three kinds of folders. One I can open and two I can't. Those I can't open have either arrows or locks. I can make those with arrows visible or invisible using the Windows Explorer setttings to show or hide system files, but those with locks simply sit there.

As an extra piece of information, usually where there is a locked folder, there is a duplicate folder with a similar name (which also has a lock). In many cases, one of these names is in English while the other one is in German. For instance, I have a Favorites folder and a Favoriten folder, both locked. There's a Start Menu and a Startmenü, both locked. A working version of these folders appears elsewhere.

My impression is that my computer has done its best to keep working by shutting down conflicts.

The question I have is whether there is any easy way to straighten this out without it just happening again?

For instance, if I move the files out of these old backed-up folders into new folders with normal default settings and delete the old backed up folders themselves, and then do a reinstall of Win7, would this help?

 

Please first clarify the following:
1. The 'old HD' you refer to is just an example and NOT the one you currently have trouble with?
2. Are you German and is your current Win 7 a German language based OS?

 

Hi Max, now that you ask, I admit some confusion of my own. Over the years I've had a number of computers and backed up my HDs from one computer to the next. Additionally, I replaced HDs sometimes and also made backups of those. I decided more recently to try and consolidate all these backups and during this process I wanted to look at the contents of one particular user which I knew to be associated with the original permissions problems. I thought that was on the non-current HD, however, now that you ask, I think otherwise.

The HD which contains 3 forms of folders (locked, invisible folders which have been made visible, and those which are currently accessible), is the one I'm currently using for my Win7 and the locked etc. folders are in the Win7 installation, i.e. in the root drive. What I recently noticed is that the original problematic user also exists on this current HD in two places. It exists on a different partition in its own right under the original XP installation, and it also exists as a back-up of a back-up from a different HD.

In other words, the problems I'm having within Win7 and the original difficult user where I changed the permissions, are both on the HD I'm currently using although they are in different partitions.

The Win7 I'm using now was installed with the option to use it as a German OS, because I'm currently located in Germany and it is easier to have it in German. It is possible that at least one of the HDs I backed up had an English installation of XP. I don't know for sure.

If I go to the alternate partition of my current HD, one of the user names is the one that has been problematic and that one includes a padlock on the User name. If I click on the User folder, it says I do not have access and asks if I want to Continue. I think this is where the original problem started, when I clicked on Continue. At that point, it asks for changes to the permissions, which I remember having carried out some years back and unfortunately, I believe this led to confusion with regard to integrity and caused this proliferation.

Thanks for your interest.

 

I had another thought about this. The problematic user is on the current HD although in a separate partition with a previously installed OS. Is it be possible to delete a user by simply deleting the folder without booting up with that older OS?

 

Maybe I missed this with all the information posted, but have you gone to the parent folder, and taken over ownership of the folder and applied it to all subdirectories?

 

Hi motc7,

What is the parent folder? Is that the original troublesome user folder which now has the little padlock icon on it?

If so, when I was first starting backing everything up, I went to the trouble user folder and was asked if I wanted to "continue" (in order to change the permissions).

The first time this problem appeared, it was because I said yes, I want to continue when I was trying to look intide the System Volume Information folder. The second time I clicked on yes, I want to continue, I was trying to see what was left in the user folder that had gained the padlock after I tried to look inside the system volume information folder.

Both of these yes's enabled me to look inside the respective folders, but then caused problems in other folders.

During the backup of the different harddrives, and presumably the XP partition on the current HD, that's when all the locks started showing up in my Win7 partition in my current users.

So now, I just checked the XP partition on the current HD (without trying to boot up in XP) and that one trouble user has the little padlock icon on it, but I seem to have full access despite the padlock, not only to that folder, but to the system volume information folder as well.

It seems like changing the permissions started this sort of cascade.

As it stands now, whenever I click on any of the padlocked folders which are located on the Win7 root drive, I get the familiar "Donk!" sound of Windows rejecting my action. It doesn't ask if I want to change the permissions.

Thanks for your interest.

 

In the following examples, a directory is the same as a folder.

Before the days of the Windows operating system, when people were using Microsoft DOS, the common term was 'directory'.
The term folder was deemed more appropriate for a graphical interface and easier to conceptualize.
http://www.computerhope.com/jargon/p/parechil.htm

 

Thanks for the useful explanation.

 

I finally found a thread here called"Folder Access Issue" http://forums.majorgeeks.com/index.php?threads/folder-access-issue.293898/#post-1921473 in which the same message and image were posted with the locks. The message in that thread was: "There was a lock symbol on it initially, but after I messed with the security settings, that change to a small curved arrow. I still get the same Access Denied though."

I have both locks and the curved arrows on different folders.

My computer is producing multiple or duplicate folders with the same or similar names. For instance, one called Programme has a lock and one called Programme doesn't have a lock. This makes me think the OS is trying to ensure that there is not multiple access to the same programs.

Since the problem started when I first made changes to the permissions levels, it seems possible that further changes to the permissions may have the potential for causing further multiplications of the folders.

 

I found some more information about the locks problem and wanted to refer anyone who's having this problem to this thread, in particular posts #4 and #6:

https://www.sevenforums.com/system-...lorer.html?s=f1246f3f78d48e0a224d7b3953ec4240

Also found this with similar information:

https://www.howtogeek.com/howto/17117/remove-the-lock-icon-from-a-folder-in-windows-7/