Icrontic is proud to offer the Office Hours series of articles. Each week we’ll take a look at a common problem in Windows or often-used software and nail down a quick fix for it. This week, the good doctor explains how to recover access to directories that give an “access is denied” error.

The symptoms

Access to folders in Windows XP is governed by a complex system of access rights known collectively as “permissions.” These permissions dictate what users have access to a file or folder and what can be done with those objects if permission to access them has been granted.

While most folders grant complete control to any user on the system, user profile folders and folders copied from other systems may be locked tight. In such cases, these locked folders are accessible only by the user account that has been tagged as the owner; certainly in the case of folders copied from other systems, that owner may no longer exist.

The common symptoms for this issue are the following message:

• “Access is denied” messages when attempting to open the folder.
• “Access is denied” messages when attempt to save to the folder.

The cure

Since bungled permissions are gumming up the works, the easiest fix is to manually reset the permissions of the folder. As described in the following steps, resetting the permissions requires a user to take ownership and then verify the rights granted to system accounts.

Step 1:

Boot into Windows’ safe mode and log into the administrator account for your system.

Step 2:

Once logged in, navigate to the location containing the folder you’re locked out of. Our introductory image shows that we should head to C:\Documents and Settings because the “roberth” folder it contains is rejecting access attempts.

Step 3:

Right click on the offending folder and hit properties. Immediately flip to the security tab as shown in the diagram below.

Step 4:

Press the advanced button and flip to the owner tab as seen below.

Step 5:

Select the Administrators entry and be sure to tick the checkbox selected in the above image. Applying the choices will replace the old owner of the offending folder and its contents with the administrator account from your system. This should unlock the folder for a majority of the accounts in most Windows XP systems.

Step 6:

You may go one step further by verifying that the users in the security tab from step 3 are accounts configured on the system. Each folder should have “full control” checked for:

• SYSTEM
• Administrators
• One user account that appears on the Windows login screen.

If any one of these is missing, pressing the Add… button will summon a dialog for adding the appropriate user. Our example diagram shows that we have added the “roberth” account by typing the name exactly as it appears on the Windows login screen. Pressing ok will add the account to the list of users granted access to the folder, so be sure to tick the full control box before pressing okay to close out of the folder’s properties.

Post-mortem

If your system ever ails from dreaded “access denied” error, be sure to first replace the owner on the folder as this will stop most permission errors dead in their tracks. Going one step further to configure account-level access can shore up any remaining inconsistencies.

While permission errors can be a source of great frustration, it’s another ailment that can quickly be cured with just a little surgery!

Do you have a common Windows or software irritation for the good doctor? Send an email to robert [AT] icrontic [DOT] com to see if there’s a quick fix for what ails you. The best ailments will be featured every Wednesday right here on Icrontic.

Tags: access is denied, can't access the folder, locked out of my folder, office hours