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I am unable to remove "read only" from any of my drives

Anonymous
2020-08-25T16:37:38+00:00

I am having an issue with all my drives showing up as read only, which does not allow me to change icons or delete any files. I have tried a few things but have been unable to change the permissions.

I am logged in as a system administrator and my permissions of all the drives are set to "Full Control".

I have tried the command prompt method of changing attributes using both of the following commands (not at the same time):

attrib -r +s F:\RPG

attrib -r -s F:\RPG.

I have also tried doing the above in safe mode but nothing is working. 

I also noticed that when trying to change permissions I get the following error (including Recovery and System Volume Information): 

An error occurred while applying security information to F:\Config.Msi

Failed to enumerate objects in the container. Access is denied.

I also discovered that 3 of my drives are now duplicated in Windows Explorer. My C and D drives are excluded but I use my D drive for my windows games from the Xbox Game Pass for PC. I've been told that this issue is something Windows may have put into place because several others have reported the duplicate drives in explorer.

At this point I am not sure what to do to remove the "read only" option from my drives.

EDIT: There are no other accounts on this device.

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Files, folders, and storage

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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  1. Anonymous
    2020-08-26T01:13:44+00:00

    Hi and thanks for reaching out. My name is William. I'm a Windows technical expert. I'll be happy to help you out today.

    To address the issue with your drives appearing a read-only: this is a common area of misconception. For starters, read-only applies to files, not folders or drives. When you toggle that setting, you are either applying the read-only attribute or removing it to/from all the files in that folder.

    Here is the important part: right-click any folder and you will see that the read-only box is "filled". This is by design, it is indicating to you that you need to either check or un-check the box to apply\remove the attribute.

    https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/326549...

    I have unchecked the box multiple times and let it run through the process of making all the sub folders and files also not read only, but everytime I go back to it the folders still indicate read only.

    5 people found this answer helpful.
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  2. Anonymous
    2020-08-26T22:56:00+00:00

    Microsoft did not just change this behavior a few years ago. This is a case of you reinforcing a belief of how you thought this works as opposed to how it really works. It goes as far back as I can recall, and that would be at least a couple decades.

    I know how it has worked in the past. I know what I did and I know the check box for "read only" did not always stay black. If you unchecked it the box would turn white to indicate it was unchecked.

    If un-checking the box didn't change it to white a few years ago that then why would I be on here asking about this now?

    3 people found this answer helpful.
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  3. Anonymous
    2020-08-26T17:08:43+00:00

    The distinction is that a folder can be hidden. A folder cannot be read-only. Only the file objects can be. This has always been the case.

    No this has not always been the case.

    A few years ago if I unchecked the "read only" box it would turn to white. I know because I had an issue with it before and was able to solve it by changing permissions. After I changed permissions back to where I had full control I was able to click that box and it would turn white and stay white, meaning all the files in the folder and sub folders were now not "read only" any more. 

    I wouldn't be asking if it has always been the case.

    3 people found this answer helpful.
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  4. Anonymous
    2020-08-25T18:09:28+00:00

    Hi and thanks for reaching out. My name is William. I'm a Windows technical expert. I'll be happy to help you out today.

    To address the issue with your drives appearing a read-only: this is a common area of misconception. For starters, read-only applies to files, not folders or drives. When you toggle that setting, you are either applying the read-only attribute or removing it to/from all the files in that folder.

    Here is the important part: right-click any folder and you will see that the read-only box is "filled". This is by design, it is indicating to you that you need to either check or un-check the box to apply\remove the attribute.

    https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/326549...

    2 people found this answer helpful.
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  5. Anonymous
    2020-08-26T02:55:55+00:00

    You are not understanding. Read-only does not apply to folders, only files. The purpose of the folder option is for to explicitly mark files in that folder to be or not to be read-only, and you will always see the box marked to indicate that you may apply either setting.

    This is new then. It used to be when you unchecked that box it would turn completely white.

    EDIT: It is also misleading because the box below it "Hidden" is unchecked and white, if you check it the box turns black like the "Read Only".

    1 person found this answer helpful.
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