WindowsXP permissions question

Hardware and technical stuff
1

Is there any way to access files in a folder that I do not have permission to access? They’re not encrypted, but they have restricted access; the only person who can access them is the user to whom the account belongs.

Is there any way to make these files open to everyone again?

2

If you’re the Administrator, you should be able to edit the permissions of the folder without actually being able to open it, if that’s what you mean.

3

I can’t. The folders in question are on another hard drive that used to be the primary drive. I could not repair it, so I bought a new hard drive and installed Windows on that, then made the old hard drive a slave.

I don’t have admin priviledges on those files, because they’re tied into the admin account on that drive. But I can’t run that admin account because I can’t get that Windows installation to boot.

Here’s another question: If I reinstall WindowsXP on that old drive, will it fuck up any of the existing permissions and accounts? Say I just have it overwrite everything in the Windows folder.

4

I think this is the answer you are looking for: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;308421&sd=tech#2

5

As I stated earlier: that doesn’t work because I DO NOT have administrative access to those folders.

The way Windows genereates secure IDs is random. So if I installed Windows on two identical machines and created a “Woolen” user account with the exact same password, those accounts would still have two completely different security IDs. So, for example, if I encrypted a file in one account, I couldnj’t decrypt it in the other just based on my password.

6

Weird, it worked for me. As long as you didn’t use encryption on the files an admin should be able to ownership of the folders from the other install.

Is there any reason for Microsoft’s True Key = Username/pw * install key?

7

So what happens when you log on as admin of the machine, go to the old Documents and Settings folder, and try to take ownership of the folder?

8

Try taking ownership of all files on the slave drive.

9

Yep, that’s the ticket.