I recently decided to join my PC to a Windows 2003 Server AD domain to get a little practise with adminstering systems in an AD environ. Now as a strange side effect I've found that some of the folders on my second partion D: have set themselves as Read Only and subsequently all the files in them are read only also. Now as folders themselves cannot have read-only attributes this means I'm unable to unset the read only attribute and get the error "access is denied" any time I try. This is the case wether I am logged onto the PC locally or as a user listed in the AD.

I'd really appriciate suggestions from anyone on how to fix this as it's getting VERY annoying.

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--Sonic

...I've found that some of the folders on my second partion D: have set themselves as Read Only and subsequently all the files in them are read only also. Now as folders themselves cannot have read-only attributes this means I'm unable to unset the read only attribute and get the error "access is denied" any time I try...

The read-only flag set on a folder is normal, it's actually used by the system for internal purposes - as you have pointed out the folder itself cannot be read-only.

The GUI provides the ability to set or clear the flag so that you can can change the flag on the child objects under it in one action, instead of having to recurse down the folder structure manually.

Test: If you try to clear the read-only flag on a folder, but select "Apply changes to this folder only", do you get the access denied message?

If YES, then go to the Security tab in the folder properties and click Advanced, then click the Owner tab on the property sheet which appears - who is listed as the "Current owner of this item"?

If NO, then check the owner of each of the files inside the folder in the same way - can you also change the read-only flag on a per-file basis without an error?

That got it thanks. Turns out it was set for Read & Execute rights for named Administrators but no more... the folder that had been confusing me orignally was set for R&E rights for everyone but you couldn't take ownership as the Add and edit buttons were greyed... that was because the folder was shared as well. Thanks for the tip