Windows 10: How to reset default file permissions for these directories?

I can see that*Smile.
I prefer to at least try to fix first something first too.
But being I use Macrium, I have at least one updated image, at oldest a month old, unless I have installed new software and set it up, then I create a new image so if something happens I won't have to reinstall and setup. But even after fixing something, I sometimes reimage any how, if the system feels sluggish after.
One of the advantages of GNU is permission problems hardly exist*Biggrin But in Windows it's easier to find something in the folder/ registry hierarchy, where as Linux you need to look for the darn file in the correct folder...

 

I read about Macrium here and I was thinking of using it since ASUS splits my 1st 500GB HDD into a C: and D:. D: is empty and I have a E: which is a 2nd identical drive to the first so either I can clone C & D to E: periodically or I can image C: to E: but how exactly do you restore if you image should windows not boot, do you boot with a USB Flash Drive and then restore the image? The August 11, 2015 installation actually failed with the Start Menu not working but instead of doing a repair install, I tried to follow someone's youtube video that said to use system restore to restore to a earlier point which I did and Windows said it didn't successfully restore so I rebooted with a BSOD and then I went into that advanced menu thing and did a system restore to a earlier point and Windows worked again except the Start Menu's default tiles were gone, that was when I decided to see how the in-place upgrade worked. Linux or FreeBSD or any Unix for that matter is a lot easier to fix when it comes to permissions than windows as it seems lots of people had permission problems with Windows 10. On Android, all one needs to do is copy the *.apk in /data/apps which is the app itself and the folder in /data for the app and you can move it across devices instead of having to deal with a registry like Windows which is a lot easier, Linux/FreeBSD are like the former, all you need is the folders and the files and it runs well. I forgot to mention that just from this thread, have learned a lot, that the apps like Microsoft Edge or those in C:\Windows\SystemApps are all *.exe files as in Desktop apps while the ones in C:\Program Files\WindowsApps seems to be the newer modern apps which I still haven't figured out where they are stored and copied to yet. LOL. One weird thing is my Start Menu always doesn't work randomly if I did a reboot and then login and I would always know before I even click the start because Windows would show HDD Health complaining about it not being about to write _identity.bin to C:\Program Files (x86)\HDD Health, I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling that but it makes no difference. The really weird thing is _identity.bin's timestamp when I check it is always when HDD Health was installed and not when I last rebooted Windows that it worked successfully. Ofcourse today, I noticed _identity.bin is also in C:\Windows except it has the time stamp of when Windows last successfully booted and the Start Menu still worked.

 

With Macrium one creates a WinPE recovery disk USB or DVD, one can also create a Boot Option, which the you're basically dual booting, but can change boot timeout to zero so you can boot to windows faster and then you can just use UEFI to boot to the boot option:


FYI: Setup Macrium Rescue to boot from an Internal/External/USB HD/SSD

The Macrium Rescue Environment

 

Sounds good, still waiting on my C:\Users folder to complete the take ownership before I icalcs it, never realize command prompt was that slow compared to the GUI. I'm thinking of upgrading my pair of WD 750GB 2.5" 7200rpm drives to the WD Blue Hybrid SSHD 1TB with 8GB SSD Cache 5400rpm drives and that can come in handy, seems like the SSHD part is better but I wonder if the slower spindle speed will hurt performance.

 

This is for the ASUS notebook you mean and not for the desktop in your specs?
On my laptop(which being older is just my emergency backup pc) I have a Samsung 840 Pro 256GB drive which works quite well. That specific disk can take up to 2.5 Petabyte in writes before failing and comes with a 5 year warranty. I just got a 512GB 850 Pro for my desktop that comes with a 10 year warranty and a 2TB spinner for system images an libraries. People have had too many problems with the hybrid disk for my taste. But you can't possibly wear out a Samsung Pro.http://techreport.com/review/27909/t...heyre-all-dead

 

Yep, for the notebook.... I currently have a pair of Western Digital Scorpio Black 2.5" 7200rpm 750GB HDD's. There appears to be a 1TB Blue SSHD which is hybrid except the spindle rate is 5400rpm but the SS part is like a 8GB cache. I thought it was Seagate that had the bad reputation for Hybrid drives. I just actually had a Sandisk 200GB MicroSD card in my mobile phone die on me after 2 months, it won't write or format, it will read fine so atleast the data was backed up.

 

The advantage of going all out SSD in portable devices(laptops & Notebooks) is your battery last longer because a lot less heat is produces(less active cooling), and if it should fall or get thumped it won't make a difference to the disk. If you don't transfer too much data, even the price worthy Sandisk SSD's are better than hybrid or spinners at a more affordable price per gigabyte..

 

You're probably right on the SSD except to be honest, SSD is still too new and seems to have it's share of reliability problems I've read about which is the reason I haven't touched it yet even though Seagate Technology or Shugart Technology as it was known has had Solid State Hard Drives since the late 1980s, not sure if it's the same as SSD. Good points about it not having problems with vibrations and shocks. I'm just waiting for a larger capacity version to be available that I can walk into a retail store in San Francisco and buy. I already set up a RMA with SanDisk which supposedly is to be acquired by Western Digital Corp for the SanDisk MicroSD 200GB card which is the largest thing that anyone makes right now and only SanDisk makes it. Supposedly, these cards are supposed to be 256GB as it is always double the size of the next lower size which is 128GB but for whatever reason, 56GB is not available so it ends up being 200GB. They are providing a Return Shipment label through the United States Postal Service instead of UPS so I am kind of cautious in sending it back as the USPS is known to misdelivered or lose things and I don't know if anyone will be liable as there is no insurance.

In any case, it seems the tool I used as far as permissions is concerned did fix the Windows Bootup time as it will have the Windows logo, the spinning circle and then it will be a black screen with the LCD backlight on for like 30 seconds before it goes into the screen with the background image where you have to hit space bar to see the login screen. However, what was weird was that right clicking start menu to load device manager would bring up UAC and also, the setup.exe installer for Realtek HD Audio Drivers tried to install but at the end, Windows would not let it install and the installer basically hanged at that point. I thought maybe because it used
icacls C:\Windows\* /T /L /Q /C /RESET
the /L was not needed and tried it without the /L that it did C:\Windows fine, C:\Program Files too without problems but after 2 hours in C:\Users when it got to the C:\Users\UpdatusUser, Windows was completely non-responsive. Task Manager didn't even work so I basically Reboot holding down the shift key after ctrl-alt-del to get that screen and then used the Tweaking.com Windows Repair which did work. It took exactly 00:38:39, 38 minutes and 39 seconds to fix everything and here is what I noticed:

It did give "ALL APPLICATION PACKAGES" group in:

C:\Windows [Read, Read and Execute, List folder Contents permissions]
C:\Program Files [Read, Read and Execute, List folder Contents permissions]

However, it did not give C:\Program Files\WindowsApps [Read, Read and Execute, List folder Contents permissions]

it didn't process all the directories under C:\Users except for the Default folder and the current user folder which is supposed to give "All Application Packages" group Full Control permissions which it failed to do so I did those manually.

When I rebooted, Store would not open as it would close immediately so I had to give C:\Program Files\WindowsApps ALL APPLICATION PACKAGES group permission and immediately I was able to open Windows Store. Device Manager works without UAC and the Realtek HD Audio Driver installed fine using the installer. Device Manager works without UAC in Safe Mode with Networking even before I ran the Tweaking.com Repair Tool. Is Safe Mode with Networking only supposed to connect using Wired Ethernet connections as my Wireless Connection was not working. So other than that, I will do later tonight, log in as the newly created Administrative User, move C:\Program Files\WindowsApps as well as rename the C:\Users\<login>\AppData\Local\tiledatalayer\Database for my account and then do a in-place upgrade install from the new account and after the install when it asks if the current user is correct, I'll just switch to my own account at that point so both the two folders gets recreated.

 

Hi,

LOL. I mean no disrespect at all but if you think it through you'll realize that you're far more likely to have disk problems with a mechanical HD (and that includes HHD) than any half decent SSD really. Just avoid the ones with known controller problems which I think are rare nowadays.

Anyways, that aside (it just made me laugh a bit), whenever I encounter permission problems I install Sysinternals Subinacl.msi and run this batch file (admin dos box): acl.bat

@echo off
title Resetting ACLs...
cd /d "%Program Files(x86)%\Windows Resource Kits\Tools"
echo.
echo Resetting ACLs...
echo (this may take several minutes to complete)
echo.
echo ==========================================================================
echo.
echo System Drive...
subinacl /subdirectories %SystemDrive% /grant=administrators=f /grant=system=f
echo.
echo.
echo Windows Directory...
subinacl /subdirectories %windir%\*.* /grant=administrators=f /grant=system=f
echo.
echo.
echo ==========================================================================
echo.
echo FINISHED.
echo.
echo Press any key to exit . . .
pause >NUL

It's not a cure all but it works surprisingly well. If you can read a batch file it's clear what the commands do for you. Obviously it can't work miracles.

A resource kit for Win 10 wouldn't be a bad idea either. *Biggrin

Cheers, *Wink

 

@Almighty1 I know to whom I'll come, if someone else in the forums, has permissions problems now*Smile.

Maybe a note of interest, after our discussions I decided to run Windows Repair(used all tabs) because I've been messing around in my registry(nothing new for me) and used a few customization tools(testing them) and started to have stability issues with IE11, WMP and Reliability History, and I really didn't want to have to reimage and update all the software that has been updated in between, also my music libraries for WMP, Groove and MediaMonkey would have had to be redone.

So I booted to safe mode with Networking and ran these settings:




And now it runs even smoother than a fresh install after all the 3rd party software gets installed.
I have used it since Windows 7, It's just a reimage is usually faster, but since my last image there were too many changes to catch up on, I thought I would try this first.

 

@fdegrove

It all really depends. Whether the drive is mechanical or not doesn't matter as I've had my share of drives dying over the years. Just to give some examples.

In 1995, Seagate 3.5" 2GB SCSI Barracuda Drive (this line came from Control Data Corp(CDC)/Imprimis) - died after I defragged with Norton SystemWorks 9.0 when I rebooted the system. Norton SystemWorks For Windows 1.0 came out after that, maybe there was a problem with 9.0.

1996, The replacement drive died as I had the drive upside down on the floor and a dust fell on the circuit board which caused a spark.

1998 - IBM ThinkPad 770Z high-end notebook with the IBM TravelStar 14.1GB 7200RPM HD, this was the largest available at the time. The system worked for exactly 12 days and then the HDD failed. It went to 12 data recovery companies and not even 1% of the data was recoverable. So much for the 95% success recovery rate, I'm in the unlucky 5%.

2002 - Dell Inspiron 8200 Notebook - it came with the IBM TravelStar 60GB 7200RPM HDD and I added a second one to do software RAID in FreeBSD. One of the drives eventually dies. So was replaced with a pair of Seagate 160GB, one which failed on February 14, 2011.

2015 - August 19, 2015 - I bought the largest MicroSD Card available which was 200GB and only Sandisk makes it. Last week, the card no longer writes or formats. I can delete and read from the files without problems.

I still haven't mentioned the problems I had with Quantum, Maxtor Colorado aka MiniScribe, IBM DeskStar, HP, Priam among other drives. I've done atleast 200+ RMA's over the years and this is drives for just one computer.

Remember that MTBF means average, one can always get a lemon and it's luck of the draw as you and I can buy exactly the same product and one of us might have reliability issues. The 2 Western Digital 750GB Scorpio Black Edition in the ASUS G74SX-3DE that has been powered on 24x7x365 since 2011 is still working which is considered reliable as far as I am concerned.

As for the batch script, it will work but remember I'm trying to get it back to default permissions.
@Cliff S
I did the in-place upgrade install last night with the 2nd newly created administrator account. What is interesting is running Setup.exe, if I said yes to Download Updates, it will say Checking for Updates but even after two hours, nothing happens when it usually would work. So I just did it without checking for updates and it did the install fine. At the end of the install, I clicked on I'm not x user, it did a restart and basically booted to the lock screen and then I logged in. It did the Out of Box Experience like usual and it did recreate C:\Program Files\WindowsApps and all the default apps work and my Default tiles is the same as the original August 11, 2015 installation which looks like this:





Windows in-place upgrade installs September 12, 2015-October 18, 2015 looks like this where the 3 tiles (Minecraft Windows 10 Beta, Flipboard, I<3Radio) are all not installed on the system, makes it seems like Microsoft is getting advertising revenue for those, would be cool to know how they can pin tiles for uninstalled apps though):





I'll create 2 new account(s), Standard and Administrator types to see what it actually generates.

I don't have another Windows 10 machine to compare to but when booting, is it supposed to have a black screen right after the Windows logo with spinning cursor during bootup and before the lock screen?

Speaking about default apps, I noticed C:\Program Files\WindowsApps and my Start Menu all apps no longer has HP All-In-One, ASUS Welcome, Candy Crush Saga and Twitter. Does the Windows Installer actually install certain apps automatically based on what other desktop applications or hardware you have?

In any case, permissions for folders...

C:\Users does not have ALL APPLICATION PACKAGES group so I added it manually.
C:\Windows has ALL APPLICATION PACKAGES group by default
C:\Program Files (x86) has ALL APPLICATION PACKAGES group by default
C:\Program Files has ALL APPLICATION PACKAGES group by default
C:\Program Files\WindowsApps does not have ALL APPLICATION PACKAGES group by default but the apps all open and run until the following is done in a elevated command prompt as it comes in handy to know what is in that folder and when one needs to do a elevated Powershell with the command Code: Add-AppxPackage -register "C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\(app name)\appxmanifest.xml" -DisableDevelopmentMode[/quote] :

Code: takeown /f "C:\Program Files\WindowsApps" /r icacls "C:\Program Files\WindowsApps" /grant "%USERDOMAIN%\%USERNAME%"F) /t[/quote] After doing that and changing the owner back to TrustedInstaller, Store and other apps will open and close immediately until one adds "ALL APPLICATION PACKAGES" group to C:\Program Files\WindowsApps, wonder why it wasn't needed before.

I actually thought about using all the tabs in Windows Repair tool from tweaking.com but I wonder would it actually cause more problems than I started with. Glad to hear your system runs even smoother than a fresh install. Now only if someone is able to develop a tool that fixes the Start Menu not working problem as I don't think there is a standard way of fixing it as it seems to have a different solution for everyone.

 

I think the "uninstalled" app tiles are just direct links to the stores download. You know how in a fresh Ubuntu install there are options to install an app directly under More Suggestions?




Maybe it's the same thing, after all Microsoft has stolen borrowed a lot from Ubuntu.

I think it just depends on how fast your machine is and after prefetch/superfetch had time to get enough information for ReadyBoot.etl to fill up.

 

Good point, I just wonder is there a way for a user to do it with tools or other means. All my Linux/BSD machines are CLI so haven't used the GUI portion of it to be able to tell. Never knew that Ubuntu had tiles either. I thought Microsoft would have adopted Unix for the base and put a GUI on top similar to how Mac went to NextStep with the Mach10 kernel and FreeBSD for the Darwin OS and then Aqua on top to make OSX, perhaps after they got out of Xenix which was Microsoft's version of Unix, they aren't touching it with a 500 foot pole.

I thought it might be the video drivers because I remember when I first upgraded from Windows 7, I might not have that black screen portion before the lock screen at bootup. Ofcourse nVidia drivers have been updated atleast twice with new versions via Geforce Experience.

 

All my video drivers are up to date, and I have Windows set to automatically log me in(netplwiz), but after POST and the spinning dots, on both machines when the login screen comes up the screen "jerks" and I get my desktop. But remember I'm using SSD's in both, so my disk and RAM is probably faster than my video card at loading. But still there is a tiny anomaly at boot.

 

I think the SSD does make a difference and what it loads before the lock screen too as I remember with Windows XP, I have to wait until the HDD has no activity before I login, otherwise it will not load all the startup items. Forgot to mention the reason I don't use GUI's on Unix like OSes is because even though the machine is on the same LAN, I usually ssh to it from Windows machines instead of physically using the computer.