Another problem

[AliasAggers]

When I try to open documents on my laptop, I now get the following message:

"The requested operation requires elevation" and I can't open it.
I've carried out system restore, but still have the problem.

What does it mean, what has caused this, and what can I now do?

[Suff]

Hi Aggers,

I'd guess it means that your security on your documents has changed and you no longer own them.

Where are they? Are they in your documents folder or are they stored with the program? How do you open them? From within the program you at going to use? i.e. a word processor, or from the File Explorer?

You can use the file explorer to reset the permissions but it would be best to do the whole folder tree and fix them all, rather than file by file.

[AliasAggers]

Suff, I type all my mail and documents using Open Office, which I have used for years.
A few weeks ago, when I accessed it, I had a message asking whether I would allow Open Office to make changes to my Hard Disc, and as I had been using Open Office for many years and having no reason to mistrust them, I said yes. I have to go through that procedure every time I go there now. Nothing has changed until today, so perhaps that has something to do with my present problem?

I can still access some of my documents by going to Open Office and clicking on their list of recent jobs I have done, but I can't see how to access older ones.

[Suff]

Hi Aggers,

That question as to whether to make changes allows escalation to a higher level than you have normally. Then OpenOffice creates these documents with higher level access which you don't have. When you try to access them from Windows you are not using that higher level access so it says you need escalation.

This is controlled by the permissions on the file system. We can fix that but we do need to know what directories to fix.

Normally your documents you work and save with will be in C:\users\[user name you log in with]\Documents

However when saving escalated I don't know where it will save your documents. That should be visible in OpenOffice.

Once we know where the documents are we can give you the process to get their permissions back to normal. We'll probably have to do that with OpenOffice too. Normally it should not ask for escalation just to run OpenOffice.

[Workingman]

John when this cropped up before a sys restore fixed it so we went no further, but now it is back.

As Suff says you need to find the Folder(s) where your files are kept. They could be in more than one location so each folder might need to be done.

Make sure you are logged in as an Administrator for this to work. The one you log on to Windows with should be administrator but to check go to Control Panel>>>All Control Panel Items>>>User Accounts.

Once ready go to a folder that contains the files, right click and choose Properties from the bottom of the menu. Click on the Security tab>>>click Advanced button>>>click on the Owner tab>>>Click Edit... Select your account name (the one you log on to Windows with) in the Change owner to list>>>Check the box, Replace owner on subcontainers and objects>>>Click Apply then Click OK on your way back.

If your files are on an external hard drive you can do the whole drive. Click the Start button>>>Click My Computer or open Windows Explorer>>>Right click the external hard drive>>>Click Properties>>>Click the Security tab and then do as above from that point.

Edit: What look like folders under 'Libraries' in the left pane of My Computer/Windows Explorer are only links. The real folders are in C:\Users\your username\
That only applies if you keep your files in the default Windows folders.

[Suff]

WM I didn't want to go into that level of detail before finding out where the files are but we many need to go into advanced and take ownership first. Then we might need to kill inheritance. Especially on the external drive.

This can also be done with a cmd file using icacls and takeown.

Since Win7 I've had some serious issues taking ownership of files on NTFS sometimes using a combination of Explorer and also the command line tools.

I guess we could create a .cmd file to take complete ownership of all files in the c:\users\[user name] directory. They should all be owned by the user but you never know what Windows did to it.

It's also complicated by the fact that when you escalate ordinary apps, they change their user folders to c:\users\[admin account] or may even push them into the Public when running as trustedinstaller.

In short escalation is a mess when it comes to home directories and permissions and is to be avoided at all times.

[Workingman]

Sorry, Suff, my post was from a draft I made when John asked a similar question the other week. I thought that we were still on the same thing.

I sometimes use Libre Office, which is a fork of OpenOffice. I had to change it to Run as Admin to open some files and this I posted on the other thread. That earlier info was what I was going to post next, but then Aggers did a sys res and solved his problem.

[Suff]

NP, just punting out my experience trying to resolve NTFS permission issues.

Pain in the rectum because of user account control..

[Workingman]

So, boredom set in........ I had done all the Libre/Open Office stuff ages ago and got to wondering about other options.

I use SoftMaker Office 2013, which I bought for a few €s on an offer. It is just like MS Office and opens just about anything. I have now found a free version here: http://www.freeoffice.com/en/ it also opens many file formats including open office formats. It will also save files to many formats including .doc .odt (open office) unfortunately it does not save as .docx, the new file format in Word, but that is not a deal breaker.

John, if you continue to have problems with OpenOffice or simply get lost with the instructions to fix it then FreeOffice would be well worth the few minutes to download and install it.

[AliasAggers]

Thanks my friends.

It certainly is a complicated business. I think I might as well remove Open Office altogether. If I do so, will the control of my files revert back to me?

Another thought - if I turn 'User Account Control' OFF, will I then be able to access my files?

I don't under stand this 'User' business. I can't recall ever having to declare ownership.

Frank - Free Office sounds a good idea. I'll do that once I get rid of Open Office.
If I delete the Open Office programme, will if free up my files?