Administrator Cannot Access Another User's Redirected My Documents Folder (272723)



The information in this article applies to:

  • Microsoft Windows 2000 Server
  • Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server

This article was previously published under Q272723

SYMPTOMS

When an administrator attempts to access a user's redirected My Documents folder, the administrator receives an "Access is Denied" message.

CAUSE

This behavior occurs because a user or an administrator applied a Group Policy object to redirect the user's My Documents folder to a network share (\\Server\Share\UserName), and did not change the Grant the user exclusive rights to My Documents default setting.

Only the user, to whom the folder belongs, has authorization to access this folder when this default setting is used.

RESOLUTION

An administrator must take ownership of the folder in order to change the Access Control List (ACL) or to access the folder.

To take ownership of a folder, follow these steps:
  1. Right-click the desired folder, click Properties, and then click the Security tab.
  2. Click OK when you receive the following message:
    You only have permission to view the current security information on username
  3. Click Advanced, and then click the Owner tab.
  4. Select a new owner, select Replace owner on subcontainers and objects, and then click OK.
  5. Click Yes when you receive the following message:
    You do not have permission to read the contents of directory path and directory name. Do you want to replace the directory permissions with permissions granting you Full Control?
  6. Close, and then reopen Properties to refresh the ACL.
Note: The permissions for this folder are now being inherited from the parent folder. In most cases you should block inheritance from the parent by clearing the Allow inheritable permissions from parent to propagate to this object check box. You will then be able to change the permissions on this folder.

MORE INFORMATION

For additional information about NTFS permissions or folder redirection in Windows 2000, click the article numbers below to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

220167 Understanding Container Access Inheritance Flags in Windows 2000

216463 Redirecting the My Documents Folder for All Users

232692 Folder Redirection Feature in Windows


Modification Type:MinorLast Reviewed:1/26/2006
Keywords:kbACL kbGPO kbprb KB272723