Cannot change READ ONLY file attributes using Administrator Account

Anonymous
2009-10-31T21:41:55+00:00

I have tried windows explorer and a custom program called Directory Opus. I have tried creating several administrator accounts but no luck.

I cannot work with this problem existing.

I need a solution.

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Files, folders, and storage

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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Anonymous
2010-02-27T20:39:32+00:00

I have the exact same issue.  Following the steps above did not work, the folder/subfolders remain Read-Only.  I am the owner of the folder and subfolders.  I'm not even sure how they became Read-Only to begin with.  Setting Read-Only on individual files works properly.  Changing folder settings does not.

***IMPORTANT EDIT:

According to a Microsoft Knowledge Base post:

You cannot view or change the Read-only or the System attributes of folders

To summarize, Windows ignores System or Read-Only settings on folders (it does not ignore those properties on FILES however).  Individual applications that you are running may not ignore the Read-Only status on a folder and may give an error.  In my situation, an application was attempting to create a new file in a folder that was marked as Read-Only and it honored the RO setting and refused to try to create the new file.

To actually change these attributes, the Properties menu will not work.  From the KB source:

  • If you click Apply changes to this folder only , the Read-only attribute is changed for all the files in the folder. However, the Read-only attribute is not changed for the folder, its subfolders, or any files in its subfolders. If you click Apply changes to this folder, subfolders, and files , the Read-only attribute is changed for all files in the folder and all files in the subfolders. However, the Read-only attribute is not changed for the folder or its subfolders.

In order to change these properties, the user must launch a command line terminal and execute the changes by hand, such as this command:

  • attrib -r +s c:\test

...which will remove the READ-ONLY setting and apply the SYSTEM setting to the folder.  Once again, changing properties of files (including files in subfolders) works as expected with the right-click Properties -> Security menu.

Knowledge Base source:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/326549

Bad support, MS.

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  1. Anonymous
    2014-08-16T13:05:27+00:00

    16 August 2014 - This is... what... five years since the original question was posted?  And no answers in site.  Microsoft is a money making machine, they should focus more on quality software development, but that could be bad for business.

    I have a folder of 15.0GB of data copies as a backup from work.   Recently I was mirroring my files and it SEEMED to work.  However, when I lost a file I was working on (it happens) I discovered I had no backup.  The copying process was hindered because I was not PERMITTED to copy to the destination folder because it was READ ONLY.

    Now, I'm not a beginner, nor am I an IT professional (could have been but I went a different direction) or programmer.   Using Windoze to set preferences does not work.  This is true under Windows Vista to Windows 7 (all updates) and has happened many times, but this time it was a file that was important.   My time or our time may not be important to MS, but it is important to me and I'll never get back the hours it took to reconstruct this file.

    some points:

    1.   The old DOS command (which was fine, but MS Changed the syntax)  attrib *.* -r/s does not work (syntax is obsolete)
    2.  The new DOS command (provided by MS in the thread) attrib c:\pathname\ -r+s does not work (bad syntax?)
    3.  The WIndows command to uncheck read only does not work.
    4.  Taking ownership of the folder does not work
    5.  Using administrator account does not work (with all of the above)
    6.  changing security settings (which were set to allow all for my account) was pointless.

    Make a new folder, name it whatever you want.  Copy your files to the destination folder and check if the folder is read only or not.   Delete or wipe the original folder, and rename the detination folder if you wish.   This really sucks if you have a  large folder (my Documents is over 80GB on my drive, and it has been set to read only before).

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  2. Anonymous
    2014-04-13T09:22:47+00:00

    I had the same issue. In my case, I was able to fix this problem by uninstalling Bit Defender antivirus and restarting my computer. Obviously this will not work for everyone, but if yo are running Bit Defender, it is worth a try. In my case, I think that I had screwed something up with Bit Defender because it was disabled, yet it wasn't. It was in some sort of partially aborted state where I had no icon in my system tray but it was still running. So I just uninstalled it and it fixed my Read Only nightmare. It was the only other thing that I could think of that might be affecting permissions and security attributes etc. And it worked.

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  3. Anonymous
    2014-02-11T16:09:07+00:00

    One of my apps does not work because the "Read-Only" property makes the folder look like a DVD/CD - I called microsoft.answers and one of their techs logged on to my machine and wasted my time!!! - either Microsoft knows how to remove this read-only property or they don't!!!

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  4. Anonymous
    2014-01-24T16:40:13+00:00

    Now that actually worked!

    Greg

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