It's Mitchsc again.

Thought I had the problem solved with a re-boot. Now I CAN delete folders and rename them. That's good.

But all folders on my PC are still checked as Read-Only and I can't turn that off, even as administrator.

My wife's PC is also XP Home, and all her folders are NOT read-only. I noticed on some discussion groups that this is a somewhat common complaint. One person said it is normal and that's just how Windows XP works (?? )

I found an article on Microsoft Support (#326549) that addresses this exact problem. They suggest using the cmd prompt, and attrib -r +s c:\<path>\<foldername>

I tried this with all combinations and just kept getting errors in the cmd.exe window.

Two Questions:
1) Does anyone know how to actually switch this read-only off (on ALL folders)?
2) Is it necessary to switch it off? (Maybe I'm driving myself crazy for nothing... )

Thanks All

Maybe I'm driving myself crazy for nothing...
Sheesh. Methinks so. You have decided to believe that a folder having the read-only attribute partially checked is a bad thing and must be "fixed". You also decided to believe that the read-only attribute was the source of your deletion problem.

I suggest you read Unable to remove Read-Only attribute from folder (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/256614/en-us) and reread You cannot view or change the Read-only or the System attributes of folders in Windows Server 2003, in Windows XP, or in Windows Vista (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/326549/en-us), especially the parts about "This behavior is by design..." and "Windows Explorer does not allow you to view or change the Read-only or System attributes of folders..."

Scleros,

I see your point, and will carefully read those articles. I take it that you do not see this as a problem. That's great. Perhaps it's always been this way and I never noticed it until I had the "unable to delete" problem??

Out of burning curiosity, why would my wife's PC, with the same OS, not have the read-only attribute?

Thanks again...

I take it that you do not see this as a problem.

Not unless you cannot rename the folder or write to it. All of the folders on my personal XP Pro machine are partially checked read-only, meaning a green square in the attribute check box and not a full literal check mark. The folders I looked at on two Windows 2000 server machines I have here have certain folders trees marked read-only and others not. All of these machines were built from scratch by myself from Microsoft media and I haven't fiddled with folder attributes beyond setting views.

... dang it, now you've got me wondering. I'll randomly spot check some of our staff and public machines here (100+) once they get booted up in the morning.


Out of burning curiosity, why would my wife's PC, with the same OS, not have the read-only attribute?

I don't know. Were I to guess, I'd say it probably had to do with how the machine was imaged by the manufacturer or if it was upgraded from a prior Windows version, etc.

Thanks Scleros.

I didn't know about the "partial and full" read-only checks. Mine are all partial as well (green).

And yes, my wife's PC was upgraged from 2000 to XP.

Thanks for checking at work...

MSC

I checked several work machines. All folders viewed locally at the machine or remotely via My Network places from another machine using XP's Windows Explorer have partial read only checks. Even folders that do not show a check locally using Windows 2000 Windows Explorer, show a partial check when viewed via My Network Places with an XP Windows Explorer. I don't have any upgraded machines to look at.

So it seems that it's only the presentation of the attribute by the Windows Explorer version in XP, as the Microsoft support documents indicated the attribute is ignored by Explorer in XP. So, I guess the partial check means "N/A"?

Well Scleros, it seems you've answered the mystery of the XP ages.

Thanks so much for preventing me from spending even more time chasing a problem that isn't there.

What a relief!

Thanks so much for preventing me from spending even more time chasing a problem that isn't there.

Hey, don't let me stop your fun! ;)