Solved: Access is denied

Hello.
I have been fighting with "access is denied" message for my Shared Documents folder. Many months ago I went to this folder and tried to make it read only, so we would not erase any files. I'm not sure how I did that...I might have just tried to set the read only feature, or might have set up write protect when I shared the folder on my network. But I now cannot un-do whatever I did. Any attempt to delete any file or folder results in the Access is Denied message.
Windows does show that I am an administrator.
If I do the "properties" for the folder, it shows the properties box, but the only tabs shown are the General and Sharing.... but not a Security tab that I was expecting.
I tried doing a Windows Restore, but this wont restore anything before January, and I did this read only thing back in August.
Any help would be appreciated, and thank you in advance.

 

Depending on OS.

Try going into Security Tab where you first set the permissions, and click on "Advanced", then click on the "Owner" tab.

There you will see a list of users that you can assign ownership to, select the user you are logged on with and click "Ok". Then re-apply the correct permissions.

This will only work if you are a "Administrator".

Cheers

 

What version do you have? Check Folder Options to see if Simple File Sharing is disabled so you can see the Security tab.

Try taking ownership (and remove the read-only attribute).

This needs to be done quite a bit in Vista, so if you want you can use this to add the option to your context menu instead of doing it manually:
Vista Take Ownership Context Menu

TakeControl is also useful.

 

Hello, and thank you for the help.
Sorry to have omitted that I am using xp, service pack 2. It should be fairly up to date. Tea timer is running, along with norton antivirus. This is on a 4 year old Dell.
When I go to my Shared Documents folder and click on properties, I do not see a Security tab. Only see General and Sharing tabs.
Most other folders shows General, Sharing, and Customize. But I do not see a Security tab anywhere, on any folder.
When I check my user accounts in Control Panel, it does list me as an administrator.
I do not see the list of users, or any security tabs that Richie19Rich says I should look for.
Simple file sharing is not clicked, so I guess that means disabled.

Thanks again for any assistance.

 

You can make the Security tab appear with this:

XP Security Tab Home Edition

Be sure to use the "Undo" file when you are done.