So, I upgraded from Windows Vista Ultimate 64 bit to Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit... so far I'm impressed with the speed over Vista. However, during the installation/upgrade process, Windows (as usual) 7... destroyed the permissions on folders and completely locked down some folders on the root drive that should have open privileges as well as my data drives.

I resolved the problem with privileges and ownership with the following:

takeown /F . /R /A /D Y > NUL
icacls . /grant USER:(OI)(CI)(F) /L /T /Q

That 'should' have taken ownership of ALL files, folders, documents (etc..); However, looking at the ownership it's still set as Administrator...... but now able to access the directories again. But I'm left with this irritating PADLOCK icon on the bottom left of every folder/file/document on the data drives. I've also noticed when creating a NEW FOLDER or NEW (FILE), that file is set automatically to 'READ ONLY' and the 'PADLOCK' appears, but still able to modify the folder.

Also, if I completely remove the user privileges and leave the administrator privileges, which the user i'm logged on as is an administrator, I am locked out of the directory... and in order for me to view the contents of the directory I need to add that user back into the privileges. Previously, every single directory/file on the data drives only had 1 permitted user and that was 'Administrators' now... I'm just baffled as to why I can't access them being that this account is an administrator and if I want to read/write/modify (etc..) I need to add this user back into the security profile???!!!

Edited September 9, 200916 yr by epic

You can access those from a true Administrator account. the user/administrator is really just a User dressed up a bit to make people feel better (I'm the administrator!) So, you need Super Administrator status to do many things. To get there, you need to activate the account first. then it will appear on the welcome page and you can get in. Activate using either group policy editor or a Command box (run as Admin) using net user Administrator /active:yes , then logoff.