Windows 10: Need Help With Windows Permissions Control Issues

Okay, so long story short my dad worked for a company and had a company laptop. He is now retired from said company.

He had personal files on that computer which he backed-up to an external hard drive.

Now when you access the external hard drive from his new computer, you cannot open those files because of permission control issues. Says he's not the "owner" and cannot do anything with the files. Even though these are personal photos and what-not.

Probably because it was a company laptop and it had it's files locked-down I'm guessing. Unfortunately that laptop has already been turned-in to his company and by now I'd imagine they've formatted it and given it to someone else. Point being that if there's anything we could've done from the old machine it's too late for that now.

I read that the permissions control has to do with Windows and with NTFS. I thought maybe if I copied them over to a FAT32 drive maybe it'd get rid of it but it also doesn't let me move or copy the files or anything. I'm not sure if I can even delete them without formatting the entire disk. No idea how to undo permissions control, I really don't mess with that part of Windows much.

Any ideas? My only other idea was to attempt using a totally different OS like a Linux distro to mess with them as I'm not sure if other non-Windows OSes are built to acknowledge Windows permissions controls.

If you're not willing to talk about it in a public forum then please at least PM me. I'd rather not have to tell him "Welp, looks like they're lost forever, sorry".

Thanks in advance.

:)

 

Network Sharing permission issues in Windows 10

Hi,

If you were able to set up the permission to full control then there shouldn't be issue with making any changes on folder. We suggest that you double check your network permission if the device you are using has full control to modify the folder.

If you can include a screenshot of the permission on the main computer then that would be helpful.

Let us know if further help is needed.

 

Need help with unhelpful help-link bug in Control Panel dialog boxes

Hi,

I have a Asus laptop with Windows 10 Home installed. I switched over from Mac last year and lack fluency in the Windows ecosystem. I think I would benefit from the help-links you find in various Control Panel dialog boxes, but unfortunately they don't seem
to work properly. They never take me to the relevant page in the online help directory. Instead, they all redirect me to the same mute landing page. Example: take the following dialog box:





If I click on "Tell me more about power plans," I'm not taken to the expected topic. Instead, I'm dropped off here.
The same goes every help/info hyperlink in every Control Panel dialog box.

Every tour guide promising to take me up the mountain instead abandons me in the hotel lobby. Not very helpful. Surely this isn't by design. So, is there a setting I need to change? Is my computer goofy? Is there a fix for this?

Sincerely,

Clueless-in-Yokohama

 

Welcome to the forum. You should just need to take ownership of the folders see our tutor which has a tool to do it for you Add Take Ownership to Context Menu in Windows 10 - Windows 10 Customization Tutorials

 

Okay thanks, I'll report back if there's any issues or if it succeeds.

 

Hmm, it seems that it's not quite that simple in this case. The "Take Ownership" tool didn't do anything that fixed the issue. I still get the error "User does not have access privileges".

Let me be a bit more descriptive - the files I'm trying to access have a little yellow padlock icon on them. Not sure if that helps any.

I mean, I've worked with permissions control at least enough to where I know how to change that setting. But in this case it's just not that simple - doing that seems to have no effect. I think these files are actually encrypted or something, which I'm not sure if there's anything to be done about.

I've already told him that, most likely there's nothing anyone can do and he'll probably need to get in touch with his company to have any chance of fixing this. Upon further research I think these files are encrypted with EFS and that he needs the key.

That being said he's retired and he said you're not supposed to save personal files to those directories anyway, so he might be boned I guess.

So it's playing out like I thought it would. When I first took a look at the laptop I said "If this were really just permissions control then I'd already be done, but this looks a bit different.. I'll do what I can, but I don't think they'd bother with it if it was that easy to undo. This is one of the world's biggest companies we're dealing with here, I highly doubt they'd secure their files in a way that a kid like me and some online forums can figure out."

...Well, unless you're Yahoo and storing people's passwords as unsalted MD5 hashes. Ha.

Thanks.

 

Upon talking with him more about it, he says he doesn't think they're encrypted because when he copied the files over to the external hard drive, something prompted him. Either he selected "don't encrypt" or the system was just telling him that the files wouldn't be encrypted.

However, the padlock icons are still on the files and even with that "Take Ownership" option it doesn't fix it. Upon attempting to open them you just get the "You don't have privileges" error.

Far as getting an encryption key goes, seems he's pretty resigned to just accepting it if that's really the case. Doubtful they'd help him and I don't think he even wants to ask. I figure these kinds of questions just make a guy sound fishy and he wasn't supposed to have personal files on it anyway so it's probably not a good idea to even ask.

If there's anything anyone can do I really appreciate it. Thanks.

Windows telling me to check my privilege. Ffs.

 

Remove the Lock Icon from a Folder in Windows 7, 8, or 10
maybe?

 

But that's just for fixing a cosmetic nuisance. In this case the files are still actually inaccessible.

 

Is it this one then?
Change or Remove Lock Icon on Encrypted Files in Windows 10 - Windows 10 Customization Tutorials
I don't know what version of padlock etc you're seeing.

 

Taking ownership can sometimes just be the first step. You may then need to add your account to the list of those that have permissions and grant yourself full control. On the Security tab, to change permissions, click 'Edit', then click 'Add' to add your account.

 

Can we get a screenshot of the folder showing file names and lock. Takeownership need to be run on the folders not the files starting with top folder