Blasted XP, all files read-only

[rylan]

Hrm my Winxp has the same thing with all the files saying 'read only' in a greyed out box... however it never caused any problems and I can edit everything just fine.

[High_Jumbllama]

Originally posted by az

attrib -r *.* /D /S

NOTE: This might not work for hidden files. Add -h to unhide them

AZ

It will.

Attrib affect all files. The -h shouldn't hurt though.

[Marshmallowman]

if you have a folder and it contains files in it that are both readonly and writeable you get a greyed check. clicking on it go from clear to grey to checked which correspond to all writeable, leave as is, all read only..that is normal.

But greebes problem is he can't change the flag...

begin brainfart
I have never seen that before, do you have some read only device/ partition mounted in sub directory?
end of brainfart

[Jammrock]

Oh, you're using FAT32 ... that's why there's not Security tab. I've been using NTFS for so long I forget that people still use it

You could always convert the partition to NTFS. You'd have more control over the files...

You could always boot to "Safe Mode with Command Prompt" and type in the following command (assuming you're on C:\):

ATTRIB -r C:*.* /s

In theory this will remove the read-only flag on every single and folder on C:. If it gives you errors or doesn't work right you might want to try C:\*.*.

One last option, if Safe Mode with Command Prompt doesn't work, you can install the Recovery Console (http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;EN-US;314058) and try it from there.

Those about all the options I can think of.

Jammrock

[Indiana]

I had this once, Win XP Pro Set all files to read-only because it thought there was an error in the filesystem - but didn't do an automatic Scandisk run.

Manually forcing the scandisk run to happen at the next boot time fixed the problem for me.
(This was with NTFS, however)

[Jon P. Inghram]

If simple file sharing is on in the folder options you won't see the security tab. Also, I see the same odd glitch with the read-only checkmark on my system, although it only effects folders, not files.

I wonder if it's a bug, if you click on the mark it cycles not through 2 settings (checked and unchecked,) but through 3, checked, greyed-out and checked, and unchecked.

[Jon P. Inghram]

Ah, it's by design actually,

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;326549&Product=winsvr2003

[Jon P. Inghram]

Oh, and one last thing, if you tried the little trick in the first post about applying the security settings to all files it may mess up the permissions of the Prefetch folder contents, causing it to not work properly (defrag program no longer knew which files were the "boot" files, i.e. those needing to to be moved to the front to boot up quicker.) Deleting the folder fixed it by causing XP to start a new one with fresh contents that had the proper permissions.