Windows 10 No access to directory

[PaulSp]

I have run into an interesting situation. I have a directory that I cannot do anything with always receiving an "access denied" response. Going into the security tab of properties gives me the message "You must have read permissions to view the properties of this object". Then "click advanced to continue". Clicking the advanced tab yields a window which says "unable to display the current owner". Below it says again "You must have read permissions to view the properties of this object". There is a "Change" option to its right as if I could possibly change the owner. When I click on the "change" it again says "you do not have permissions to view the properties of this object". I've tried to go into the command prompt to add read permissions to the directory but to no avail. So I have a directory which I, as an administrator, cannot manipulate.

 

[PaulSp]

Attached is a screenshot of a dir/q of the directory. handhistory doesn't appear to have an owner.

 

[Neemobeer]

You need to first open an elevated command prompt, right click 'Command Prompt' and select 'Run as Administrator', then you can take ownership and grant access

takeown /F C:\americascardroom\handHistory /A
then grant yourself access
icals C:\americascardroom\handHistory /grant <username>:f

 

[PaulSp]

The handHistory directory is gone! Very weird. So the problem has gone away... I don't understand this at all.

 

[Neemobeer]

It could also just be a hidden directory.

 

[PaulSp]

No it was not a hidden directory. I tried to delete it yesterday and of course couldn't. Now I've deleted the americascardroom directory so everything is good. I just don't know what happened to make handhistory disappear. As you can see, it existed as of 12:06 AM. I don't believe I've rebooted since then. I just put the computer to sleep. Perhaps some process had it accessed? I don't know. It's a mystery

What is the icals command? I typed icals /? and my computer didn't recognize the command.

 

[PaulSp]

You need to first open an elevated command prompt, right click 'Command Prompt' and select 'Run as Administrator', then you can take ownership and grant access

takeown /F C:\americascardroom\handHistory /A
then grant yourself access
icals C:\americascardroom\handHistory /grant <username>:f

ok. my poker software did another update and the same thing has happened. the handhistory directory is not owned by me and I can do nothing with it. I tried the "takedown" command and got the following:

ERROR: Access is denied.

The last time I did this, the directory somehow had disappeared on its own, so I never got the change to try the takeown command.

I'll again install the software in another directory as a workaround. Something weird about their installation upgrade procedure, clearly.

 

[Neemobeer]

You need to run the command from an elevated command prompt, not a regular command prompt.

 

[PaulSp]

You need to run the command from an elevated command prompt, not a regular command prompt.

I did.

Anyway, I think I figured out what is happening. Another piece of poker software had the directory opened and apparently interfered with the update. After rebooting the handhistory directory disappears, which explains what happened last time. I just need to remember to exit the other software before upgrading. So apparently what is really happening is that the other software has somehow taken exclusive control of the directory. Too bad the error message doesn't say something helpful like "another program has this directory accessed" or some such. That other poker program runs with privilege, btw.

 

[samK]

Right-click the folder that you want to take ownership of, then choose "Properties".

2. Click "Security" > "Advanced" > "Change". If you are prompted for an administrator password or for confirmation, type the password.

3. Type the name of the user that you want to give ownership to, and then click "Check Names" and "OK".

4. If you want this person to be the owner of the files and subfolders that are contained in this folder, select the "Replace owner on subcontainers and objects" checkbox. Then, click "OK" to confirm.