Someone brought me a Win 8 system that gives a UAC prompt when moving files within the user directory, say from Pictures to a subfolder or the Desktop. It would seem ownership/permissions have been screwed up. I ran the Tweaking.com repair tool to reset permissions (only option was the entirety of C:\ so it took forever) and it seemed to fix the problem temporarily, but must have un-fixed after a reboot. Malware scans are coming up clean, starting to suspect the user account has been corrupted but need a second opinion.

Try to make a new user account and check if it works correctly.

On 6/14/2018 at 12:32 PM, HarryTri said:

Try to make a new user account and check if it works correctly.

New user account sort of fixed the problem. Most files could be moved, renamed, etc without issue but several were still giving me UAC prompts. Ended up doing a clean install and no more errors, but with my luck I'll probably encounter the issue again down the road :P

A clean install is always the best solution when something goes wrong without logical explanation.