WindowsXP permissions question...

[Paunchy]

Quick rundown: my office computer crapped out yesterday, so I had to reinstall XP. I didn't want to lose all the files I had in the My Documents folder, etc. etc. so rather than doing a clean installation, I installed XP on the same partition and just renamed the Windows folder. Everything works fine now (for the time being), but I encountered a small problem. I don't seem to have access the folder that holds my profile infomartion, documents, etc. Is there any way to override XP's permissions for these folders? The old folder (prior to reinstall) belonged to an account with administrative access, and I'm an administrator under the new installation, but no dice. Is there any way of accessing my old files under Windows, or do I have to go through the recovery console and manually copy everything over?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Smilin]

Provided you didn't encrypt anything you'll just need to use an administrative account 'take ownership' and then reset the permissions so you can read the files. Regardless of who the previous user was you won't have access to those files by default. As long as you have an admin account you can get into anything..in this case it just takes two extra steps.

Checkout the built in Windows XP help. Do a search for the keywords 'take ownership' and read the results that come back in the "full text search matches" section.

 

[Aenygma]

Glad you came to me Paunchy lol (stalking)

To take ownership of a folder in XP:

Right-click the folder you want to take ownership of, and then click Properties.
Clicky on the Security tab
Clicky Advanced, and then click "Owner tab".
To take ownership of the contents of that folder, select the Replace owner on subcontainers and objects check box.
Click OK. Then the warning msg will appear:
"You do not have permission to read the contents of directory folder name. Do you want to replace the directory permissions with permissions granting you Full Control?"
Clicky Yes (natch)
All permissions will be replaced if you press Yes.
Click OK, and then reapply the permissions and security settings that you want for the folder and its contents.


My next idea is Format C: Sure you wont have access to the info, but the folder will be all yours lol