Will in-place reinstall return permissions to default?

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Does anybody know if an in-place reinstall will return the folder and file permissions to their default. I’m using Win7.

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Does anybody know if an in-place reinstall will return the folder and file permissions to their default. I’m using Win7.

Permissions on which folders?

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Permissions on which folders?

Documents and Settings

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I won’t be completely certain, but don’t think that will be touched. My own experience leads me to believe they will remain as they are now. In my own reinstalls, never noticed any changes.

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I won’t be completely certain, but don’t think that will be touched. My own experience leads me to believe they will remain as they are now. In my own reinstalls, never noticed any changes.

In my case, that’s actually too bad. I was hoping to get them back to the defaults.

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In my case, that’s actually too bad. I was hoping to get them back to the defaults.

Are you having issues resulting from the current values for the permissions? Do you want to provide some more info on what is happening?

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Are you having issues resulting from the current values for the permissions? Do you want to provide some more info on what is happening?

I’m not having any issues, per se, however for security purposes I’d like to get them back to the way they were. I have been installing Win7 for the first time. I wasn’t able to access some directories nor was I able to delete some items so I changed the permissions. I wasn’t too careful about keeping track of what I changed because it’s not too big a deal to start all over. It’s that I’d prefer not to if I didn’t have to. It’s probably just as well, I would have done things quite a bit differently now that I have some first hand experience. For instance, I certainly would have done some of the installation under safe mode or the real administrator account. Even though I have Home Premium, I remembered an easy way to get the real administrator without having to deal with exposing Local Users and Groups, which doesn’t seem to be possible. It also doesn’t seem to be possible to run Group Policy. If I knew Home Premium was going to be so restrictive, I probably would have gotten the Pro version like I’ve had on XP. I may just have to upgrade, although I don’t know if that, safe mode, or real administrator will be less restrictive. Under Home Premium real administrator still seems to have some access impediments.

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I think Group Policy is a feature of the Pro version, Home Premium does not support it.

Administrator accounts behavior is a bit different under 7, from what it was with XP, for security reasons. I have never found, except in rare cases, that you needed to perform installations as admin, so there isn’t nothing to be gained from that and moving to Pro won’t change it. Safe mode can be used to remove apps, but to install them there is nothing to be gained, either.
7 will always look restrictive to someone coming from XP, but I think that was a Microsoft design goal. It does not really affect installations and an administrator account shouldn’t have any issues, except in rare circumstances. Apps that need to install under real admin permissions, usually state that (and it really is not a common need, at least in my experience).

I probably wouldn’t worry much about Documents and Settings permissions. If your worry is about security, I would suggest getting best of breed security apps, more than one, if you can (like an AV and another real time scanner such as Malware bytes) or, even better, a decent HIPS and a good AV.

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Keep in mind that if you are migrating from XP various folder names that you are used to seeing have new names in Windows 7. Also, the old names will still appear if you enable them in Windows Explorer but the accessing the folders with the old names is not possible. The old names such as “Documents and Settings” are preserved for older programs which do not know the new user structure and naming. The “old names” just function as a redirection to the new names.

Joe

--Joe

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I use Comodo and have many other layers of security. It’s just that this is one I’d like to re-establish. UAC I can do without, but turning that off doesn’t seem to help much. The difficulty I have is not so much with the installations but with not even being able to see what’s going on with my system. I do a lot hands-on and like to customize to suit my needs, which is why I use the (old) Opera, among other such apps. But with Win7 I can’t even view the directories. I was already thinking early on that I’d stay with XP and only use Win7 for things that required a newer OS and where I couldn’t find a work-around in XP or it was too much trouble.

Maybe it’s finally time to move to Linux.

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There are a few utilities that can be of use, if you want to access some folders that Windows 7 restricts you from accessing. For example, there are a few shortcuts that could be used in XP and not there are not permissions to view them, by default. You can simply right click them, choose the security tab, select the account you want to use (such as Administrators or your own account) and then choose advanced. In advanced, you can remove the deny permissions by clicking Change Permissions and then clicking the Deny option and choosing Remove.

Another option is to use something like TakeOwnership or GrantAdminFullControl, to get a better handle of your folder permissions.

7 may seem a bit restrictive when you are coming from XP, but 7 is a great OS and soon you will be up to speed with it. I would suggest that you put the irritation you must be feeling now a bit to the side and try to evaluate the OS and the things you need to do with it, regardless of your XP ways. Sometimes this annoyance with “someone messing with our cheese” can be a way to put os off to the benefits of the new system, just because it is a bit different from the one we are used to. Please be sure that I am not being patronizing, since I feel and have felt that irritation, as well.

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Due to what you were saying, I always try to give a new piece of software a fair shake. I do like Win7, tho I don’t see where I’m really gaining much of anything over XP. Plus, I have to learn my way around a new OS, although I’m getting pretty good at that now. I did try granting full control to administrators (with the “s”) but that, strangely enough to me, didn’t help. I then tried the same with other obvious choices of Users and didn’t have any luck with those either. It wasn’t until I chose Everyone (which doesn’t seem like a good idea to stick with) that I got some results.

I’d been planning to read up on TakeOwnership and GrantAdminFullControl. I did click on TakeOwnership once and, without the usual warning dialogue for that type of action and saying what it was going to do, it went wild on the whole directory, subdirectories and files. That was actually the point where I felt I had lost control of the permissions, except, like I said, I was mostly thinking of this as a test install. The concern I have with TakeOwnership is that the Ownership permission usually resides with the installing application and I don’t know what overall damage I’d be doing. GrantAdminFullControl sounds promising, but with real administrator, run as administrator, and granting full control in permissions not helping much, I don’t hold out much hope. Microsoft seems to have deprecated the meaning of “full control” to the point where the term is nearly meaningless.

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Both TakeOwnership and GranAdminFullControl need to be used with care, they are no shortcut solutions for bigger problems.

Windows 7 will offer you better hardware support, including multicore support for today’s CPUs, the ability to go above 4 GB RAM if you need to and it is a better OS, security wise. I have never found the need to mess with permissions regarding app installation and you probably need to be aware that the additional restrictions were meant to restrict rogue software from benefiting from XP’s freedom, permissions wise. I totally understand that there is no need to have “Full Control”, except when its absence stops you from achieving what you want. I would have to ask, what it is that you want to do that you cannot do, on 7, as a result of said restrictions?

I have been using 7 since it was released. I definitely can’t find anything on 7 that restricts me from doing what I want. In the few circumstances where that happened, either by running Windows Explorer as an admin, using takeownership or similar, or removing the dumb deny permission on shortcut folders, I have managed to get it working as I wanted. I don’t miss anything from XP, not one bit. Last year I got an used laptop for my kid, given by a family member and the first thing I did was a clean install to remove XP – replaced it by Windows 8 and my kid has no trouble using it – he is now 13 years old.

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Multicore support is good to know. I had bought an AMD 4-core 2800 but found that I got much better performance with my 2-core 4200, besides the 2-core being 1/3 more energy efficient, so I put that back in. That’s not too surprising with the higher clock rate, but the highest 4-core they make is only about 3100 or 3200.

“additional restrictions were meant to restrict rogue software”
I’m quite aware of Microsoft’s intent, however software that’s designed to ‘protect of us from ourselves’ does not suit my desire to customize and experiment. Like I said, I do have many layers of security and I’ve never had a problem in over 40 years, not that rouge software has been a problem for that long.

“I would have to ask, what it is that you want to do that you cannot do, on 7, as a result of said restrictions?”
I could go on with pages of examples, however just one is Opera. Sometimes you need to modify the operaprefs.ini or taskbar.ini to get what you need. These now reside in the Documents and Settings directory. For instance, I usually install as a Standalone (not the same as the USB install, aka. portable, that they now offer) so I don’t have my apps spread out all over the place. Occasionally after several revisions it’s a good idea to do a fresh install and I thought this would have been a good opportunity to do it. This time I could not get to the operaprefs.ini to make the necessary modification to immediately install it again as a Standalone. The commandline switches no longer work for this. Another good example is the nVidia graphics installer that often has problems and needs a few hacks to help it along.

I know that Opera has also been dumbing down its product to, understandably, protect the more casual users. I’m sure that almost all of the problems that OS and software makers have to deal with come from people screwing around, so I don’t blame them for the turn software has taken. As it is, I usually experiment on my backup clone before I decide or make any changes to my main install.

I did try running Windows Explorer as an admin and ran into something there, but I don’t remember what it was. I also believe I tried that under the real admin account. I’m beginning to think there’s something that I’m not undoing, like I did with UAC, that causing me the difficulties.

I’m definitely going to try removing the deny permission on shortcut folders. Maybe I’ve been going overboard by granting full control, tho I can’t see where that makes any sense – won’t be first time for MS, however.

I’ve only been working on this for a few days, and I’m sure I’ll be able to figure something out. I do love a challenge.

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“Documents and Settings” is not a folder in Windows 7. It is a junction point intended to allow programs which used the old XP User folder paradigm to be able to function without an update. You do not ever need to do anything to “Documents and Setttings” in Windows 7.

When you disable “Hide protected operating system files” most of the folders under your user id that look like shortcuts are actually junction points. There is no need to change permissions on any of them.

Joe

--Joe

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“When you disable “Hide protected operating system files” most of the folders under your user id that look like shortcuts are actually junction points. There is no need to change permissions on any of them”
I was somewhat aware of that, and beginning to find out that’s not what I needed to be working on. However, I have seen posts, like in the Opera beta forum, where they said to go to Documents and Settings. So where do you go to modify an .ini file? I’m going to have to study this more, obviously.

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The shortcuts have alternatives, but I do change mine. It’s just annoyoing not to be able to click a shortcut that’s there.

Documents and settings just points to c:users.

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You did see my reply at the bottom of the last page, didn’t you? I wouldn’t want you to think I blew past the question you asked me. The link in e-mail of new replies may have only taken you to this next page.

I’m going to boot over to Win7 now and see about some of the ideas you’ve given me. Thanks.

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I did see your reply. There is just a single page for me.

I have no troubles doing whatever I want in documents and settings. It may require a TakeOwnership here and there, but never had an issue resulting from that.

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That’s good to know. Now I know it’s just me and that it can be done. I’ve been working on my mouse that’s been a bit wonky in Win7, but I think I’ve narrowed down the problem. I let you know how things turn out on the directory access situation.

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I believe I’ve gotten the story on what’s happening with the Windows Explorer directories squared away. I had some misconceptions derived from the Opera beta forum where it’s not always clear what version of Windows they’re talking about. The forum doesn’t have an area under the poster’s comments for their system specs. I did a clean install and it went fairly well. Worked out a couple of minor glitches, and still have a couple to go.

Thanks again for your comments pointing me in the right direction.

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Great, glad you are sorting it :).

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