Windows 7 - Are my files arranged as they should be?

Asked By browniebodrum

15-Nov-09 08:08 PM

When I got my Vista Business laptop in spring I had a lot of problems
accessing folders which I'd transferred over from my previous laptop which
was running XP, and I kept getting messages to say I did not have permission
to open the folder (or something like that) even though I am the only user of
the Vista machine (as I was on the XP machine) and I have administrator
rights in Vista.

I'd like to know if my folder structure is like that of other Vista users or
if I have got some irregularities there which are still causing indexing,
search and access issues.

For example, if I click on 'Start' (the Windows logo button or key), then
click the 'Documents' link under [My name ] (at the top of the right-hand
column, in black), Windows Explorer opens and in the address line at the top
it says > [My Name] > Documents.  In the left-hand pane, 'Documents' is
highlighted and in the right-hand pane, sure enough, I can see all the
sub-folders of 'Documents' (i.e. what was 'My Documents' in XP).  BUT if I
scroll up to the top of the left-hand pane and click [My Name], in the
right-hand pane I then see a number of folders, but Documents is not one of
them.  I know by trial and error that to get to 'Documents' from here, I have
to click on a folder in the right-hand pane called 'Links', then click on a
SHORTCUT to Documents in the Links folder, to get me to the 'Documents'
folder.  Is this the same for everyone?

Another possibly related example is that when I use Windows Picture Gallery,
I simply cannot add any pictures to the Gallery from 'my' Pictures, I have had
to put them all in the Public Pictures folder to be able to view them using
Gallery.  (Using Windows Live Picture Gallery makes no difference).  I get a
message saying I do not have permission to access 'my' Pictures folder or that
it is a system folder.

I am obviously not understanding something, so I'd be grateful for help or
pointers to more reading.

15-Nov-09 09:36 PM

Try taking ownership of the folders.

Add "Take Ownership" to right-click menu in Vista
http://www.petri.co.il/add-take-ownership-context-menu-vista.htm

01-Dec-09 11:25 AM

Hi Bob, thanks for the response and apologies for the lack of reply until now
- I did not receive any reply notifications and had not had chance till today
to come and browse the messageboard again.

I followed the excellent instructions and added "Take Ownership" to the
right-click menu in Vista and that is working correctly.  However, I cannot
navigate to a position where I have got the root folder 'Documents' in the
right-hand pane and select it, in order to take ownership, and the 'take
ownership' option does not appear if I do shift/right click on the
'Documents' folder where it appears in the left-hand 'Folders' pane.  I have
taken ownership of the first folder and its contents in 'Documents' but that
has not made any difference to the apparent location of 'Documents' or how I
have to navigate to it (as described in my original post), via the 'Links'
shortcut.

On a positive note, the second issue I mentioned (whereby Windows Picture
Gallery previously would not allow me to add pictures to the gallery from
'my' Pictures folder) is now resolved, even though I did not specifically
take ownership of 'my' Pictures folder.  Perhaps the act of running
Ownership.reg has fixed some previous errors in the Registry, but I cannot be
sure because in my haste to try out the 'Take Ownership' fix, I did not check
to see whether the problem still persisted before I applied the fix.  I will
try and be more methodical in future. ;-)

03-Dec-09 01:34 AM

You should not have to "do shift/right click" in either pane.

Just right click.

04-Dec-09 11:18 AM

Thanks for this, Bob.  I have done some more testing and can confirm the
'take ownership' option on the menu only appears if I am pressing 'shift' as
I right-click.  Right-clicking the folder or file does not bring up the 'Take
Ownership' line on the menu.  Is this part of the problem?  When I click
'Properties' of an individual file in Documents, and click details, most of
them are showing as belonging to me anyway ([MyComputerName]\[MyName]). Any
further suggestions?

PS apologies for this being off-post but can you advise me where I should
post for help with the newsgroup itself?  I am not getting notifications of
new postings even though I have ticked the box for that and they are not
appearing in my spam folders, either (hence the again-delayed reply to your
post).

Regards,  browniebodrum

04-Dec-09 02:23 PM

Which firewall, anti-virus, anti-spyware or security suite is installed?
There are some that cause problems which don???t always appear immediately.


Use a newsreader instead of the web interface.
http://forum.soft32.com/win3/access-Microsoft-Newsgroups-Microsoft-Website-ftopict45930.html

04-Dec-09 03:30 PM

ZoneAlarm Extreme Security version:9.1.008.000
TrueVector version:9.1.008.000
Driver version:9.1.008.000
Anti-virus engine version:8.0.2.42
Anti-virus signature DAT file version:998529760
AntiSpam version:6.0.0.2383
ZoneAlarm ForceField 1.5.53.4
ZoneAlarm ForceField Spyware Scanner 1.5.53.58
ZoneAlarm ForceField Anti-Phishing Database 1.2.104.0
ZoneAlarm ForceField Spyware Sites Database 04.020

05-Dec-09 01:18 AM

Are there any security programs that were pre-installed on your PC?

21-Dec-09 09:33 PM

It did have Norton pre-loaded on it but (after a lot of message about) I got
rid of it using something I downloaded and following advice on various forums
- sorry I cannot say exactly what/how, now, I cannot remember.  I have discovered
something else since I last posted.  First, the original problem with not
being able to add 'my' Pictures folder to the Windows Picture Gallery (while
*in* WPG) still persists (I still get the error saying the folder is a hidden
or system folder (even though I have checked and I am the owner).  Also, there
is a folder with the name 'Users' on my Desktop which contains 4 folders
which have various variations of NTUSER.DAT as their name.  A number of posts
on the web say this folder is a hive for the Registry, BUT that it should be
in the Documents and Settings folder.  Is this part of the problem, do you
think?