Admin, ownership and security

[jarl.versavel]

Alright lads, prepare for a wonderful problem.

I'm a gamer, been gaming for a long time, so naturally I use Steam, Battle.net, the works. Until recently (a couple of months ago) I never had any problems, but lately weird things are happening. I boot up my pc and a game on steam can't update due to "missing file priviliges". After some looking around I decided to uninstall and reinstall the game. However, reinstalling to the same path is not possible.
So I look at the folders and see the uninstalled game still has a folder with only one .exe file in it. I tried to delete it and my computer says "You need permission from the computer's administrator to make changes to this file". This strikes me as odd, given that I'm the only user on this pc and definitely an admin. So I start looking around on the interwebs and found that I need to change the permissions in the security tab, giving myself full control.
I'll try to post some pictures to show you guys what I did.

I right-click the file, go to properties, then security and then this shows:
https://ibb.co/bZZi5m

Lovely, so I click advanced:
https://ibb.co/myX9d6

It keeps getting better, if I try to change owner:
https://ibb.co/byvZBR

So I try the permissions for the folder in which the file is located:
https://ibb.co/gUot5m

As you can see from the wonderfully scratched through user, which is mine, I have full control of the folder, subfolder and files in it.
So my question to you guys, cause I have tried absolutely everything I can think of, including making a Take Ownership option when I right-click the folder, is how can I solve this? It's getting mildly infuriating that I don't have full rights on my own pc and it's preventing my games from updating, thus forcing my to uninstall en reinstall them in a different folder.

Thanks in advance guys, hope you lot can help me out.

 

[Colif]

It could be your user is corrupted. I had a similar problem 2 years ago when I first got win 10 and fixed it by setting up a homegroup as I found onedrive had more access to my library folders (Documents, music, pictures, Video) than I did and I couldn't make changes to any files in them. Sounds very similar to your case.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/help/17145/windows-homegroup-from-start-to-finish

Another option is to create a new local user - https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/help/4026923/windows-create-a-local-user-or-administrator-account-in-windows-10 - Make it admin, and copy contents of old user onto the C:\users\username folder of new user, this will give it access to all your files. This takes 10 minutes, afterwards you just need to login to steam, set up browsers and set up onedrive (if you use it now)

 

[jarl.versavel]

Hi,

I tried creating a new account, even tried the hidden admin account of Windows 10 itself but it's still the same error. I doubt the homegroup will work as the files in my library folders are not the problem, but rather in my Program Files and even those on my other drive.

I'll keep searching though and thanks for your reply!

 

[Colif]

have you tried uninstalling game and getting it again? I had similar happen to me but it was an old game, I just removed it and reinstalled it, seemed to be happy then.

hidden admin account is pretty useless, it can't access a lot of things a normal user can, like settings.

I don't know why steam would lose access to game folders while you can still save to normal folders. Steam should have same access as you do

 

[jarl.versavel]

Yes I have. The problem is that when I uninstall the game, one file is left behind. When I reinstall the game to the same folder directory (where this one file remains), it will just say the same "missing file priviliges" when I try to reinstall.
It's perfectly possible to just reinstall the game to a different directory, but that's not an ideal solution plus I'd like to know why I can't do what I want on my own computer.

 

[ShadyHamster]

Try adding yourself to the auditing tab, with full access of course.
Another thing to try is ticking the 'Replace all child objective permissions entries....' on the permissions tab then hitting apply, could also try this with the auditing tab too but usually not needed.

 

[jarl.versavel]

I can't change anything in the auditing tab because I don't even have Read Permissions for said file. I tried changing it all in the permissions for the folder containing the file but that doesn't change anything. The moment I hit apply I just get the error "Failed to enumerate objects in the container. Access is denied."

 

[jarl.versavel]

Update: I tried turning off the User Account Control and then rebooted my pc. The files I wanted to delete suddenly disappeared and I can delete the folders that contained them. I guess it's fixed then? Thanks for the help anyway guys!

 

[Colif]

Restarts can fix things, its probable the folders were just ghosts and had already been marked for removal on next restart.

Glad you worked it out anyway