File/Folder Security resetting

Question

Hello,

I wanted to see if anyone was able to help us with an issue we are having. Some of our users created files that many others access for different purposes, currently whenever the person who created the file makes any changes to the file and saves it, it locks everyone one out of it. Whenever the file owner edits the file, it removes all file security, and no one is able to access the file. Has anyone ever had this issue? if so how were you able to fix it. Anything helps.

Answer 1

Hi，

When a file in a Windows file share is currently being accessed or used by a process or user, it could be locked to prevent other users from modifying it. This is a common when multiple users try to access the same file simultaneously.

To check the file locks, right click on the Windows button and open Computer Management, then navigate to System Tools > Shared Folders > Open Files. This will show you a list of files that are currently open and the users who have them open

If you need to release a locked file, you can right-click on the file in the Open Files list and choose Close Open File. This will force the file to close but may cause data loss if the user hasn’t saved their changes.

Or you can navigate to System Tools > Shared Folders > Shares, right click on the share and select Properties, then set the "Allow this number of users" option under User limit to 1.

Best Regards,

Ian Xue

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Answer 2

Please clarify "locks everyone else out". It sounds like you're saying the file permissions are reset such that no one else has access but it could also mean no one can access the file. The problems are different so identifying which case is important to determining the solution.

In the former case where user A saves the file and user B, who could previously access the file, can no longer access it. However user A can continue to access the file. This sounds like a file permissions issue. If the "save" process involves creating a new file then the user who creates the file owns it and no one else would have access, by default. User A could continue to access the file and save as needed. In this case you need to grant NTFS permissions to the users, or ideally the group, that the users belong to such that they have read/write permissions to the folder. Then any file they create inside the folder will be read/writable to everyone else.

If instead the file is literally locked and no one, not even user A, has access then it is a file locking issue. This generally means the app that is saving the file is not properly releasing the file so others can access it. This should be easy to replicate as user A, after saving, would not be able to save the file again, in most cases. But restarting the app would allow another user to suddenly have access again. In this case the app is not properly cleaning up the file.

Answer 3

Set the desired permissions on the folder, not on the file itself.

Some applications like Excel, do not save the data back to the original file, but instead save it to a temporary file and then delete the original file, and renames the temp file to the correct file name.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/description-of-the-way-that-excel-saves-files-fe847711-96cf-5978-00ae-46e30db88982

Organize your file system by functional groups of users. Ie: \\Servername\ShareName\Accounting or \\Servername\ShareName\Engineers. Create a local or AD security group to manage access. We used to use names like Accounting-ReadOnly, Accounting-Update, and Accounting-Managers and applied permissions to the folders based on the groups role.

Don't grant NTFS permissions to individual users. Always use groups. That way when employee xxxx quits and you hire zzzz to replace him, you can look to see what groups xxxx is a member of, and can add zzzz to those groups. That eliminates the need to search the file system for folders where xxxx has access. You just add zzzz to the correct groups.