Understanding File or Folder Permissions

By Kay Franklin

In this article I am going to talk about file or folder permissions.
If you need to keep a file to yourself you leave it in My Documents. If you want others to have access to it you put it in the "public" folder. Some applications are not configured to use My Documents and store files in application specific folders.
These files will generally be visible to any user that can log into the computer and uses the same application. Many people don't seem to be aware of this.
At that point you may find it helpful to have some concept of how to manage permissions on certain files and folders.
The key points I want to make are:

1. The security tab (or Sharing tab) can be opened by right clicking the respective file or folder in windows explorer and selecting the properties menu. The security/sharing tab becomes visible.


2. Any folder on the System Drive (C Drive) should allow access to the Security tab on the folder Properties window. The permissions can typically be assigned to one or more users, administrators and system based application type permissions.


3. Any file on the System Drive (C Drive) should also allow access to the Security tab on the Properties window. The permissions are typically assigned to one user only, administrators and system based application type permissions.


4. The public folder (shared documents) on the C Drive usually allows more accounts to have access to it including the "Everyone" group. The same applies to files in the public folder.


5. Any folder on a non-system drive (portable drives such as memory sticks or external hard drives) will usually only have a tab that allows the folder to be shared or not shared.


6. Any file on a non-system drive (portable drives or external hard drives) will not have any configurable permissions immediately available.


7. Public folders on a non-system drive are typically treated the same as any other non-system folder. The same applies to files in any public folder on a non-system drive.


8. In effect - any file or folder on a non-system disk or media device is treated as being visible to anyone with a user account on the computer it is connected to.


9. If you decide to modify any permissions using the security tab for either a folder or a file then my very strong recommendation is to stick with ONLY selecting or de-selecting "allow" permissions.


10. If you own a Hewlett Packard (HP) computer then it is possible that you will not have ready access to any of the security/sharing tabs in the file or folder properties window on either the C-Drive or the non-system drive.

I strongly discourage use of "Deny" permissions for security setting. "Deny" permissions override "Allow" permissions and can cause considerable problems and confusion. A single user with a full set of "allow" permissions (as an administrator) but who also has a "deny" permission somewhere (as a normal user) can still be denied access. This can be hard to track down and hard to fix when it happens.
There are a couple of non-standard ways to modify permissions if this is needed. One involves the use of a command line utility (shrpubw) that can help sort out shared folders.
The other involves the use of certain command line instructions that can set access control on folders and files according to specific users or groups of users. I consider this to be quite a risky way to manage folder and file permissions and I don't encourage its use in general.
One other option that sometimes works is to log into the administrator account in safe mode. This can allow security permissions to be set in ways that are not normally available. This may be useful to HP users if they can't get access to security tabs using the normal methods.

By the way would you like to learn more about keeping your computer safe and working at its best? If so then sign up to my free email series now.: Tips & Tricks: Computer Efficiency

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