Networked USB drive on XP - New files always read only

[urville]

We have an XP pro system here that houses our NTFS USB drive for storage of files. We save and work off this drive across a standard windows network. All the other machines are Vista or 7. I have double checked permissions re this link: http://ask.metafilter.com/38252/Can-not-delete-files-on-portable-drive

I have made manually adjusted the "read only" flag on all files on the drive. Never-the-less, all new files created from these systems coem out being read only. We can work on the drive, create the files, work in them, save them. When we go to move the files we get a "the file is in use" error. You can navigate to the files and change the "read only" attribute flag from the Vista/7 machines but it doesnt actually change it. You have to go to the physical machine and change the flag and then you can do anything with the files.

Why is this happening and how can i stop it? I've never seen anything like this, it's bizarre. help is appreciated. We all use the same login to map the drives, and it has full control, and the ownership is set as everyone, and no effect.

I appreciate any help and will gladly supply any info I may have forgotten.
Dave

 

[mavroxur]

You need to set the permissions on the shared folder/drive on the machine that's sharing the files to allow "everyone" full access to the share.

 

[urville]

I did do that... but... Still getting this "in use" error on some folders due to subfolders and files, made sure it was recursive.. Also, changing attributes globally by selecting all folders in the root of the USB drive and changing the attribute does not work. It acts like it's doing it, some attributes are changed but you go down into the folders and things are still read only. Trying a third party app to see if it works better. Something seems off. Never had this issue so this is all new to me. Wonder if i need to pull it and put it on a 7 system and make the changes?

Why in any scenario ever, would it choose read only for new files. Why then would it say "in use" but then a minute or two later let you move it... but then stop doing all that if you take the read only attribute off. This is not my classic understanding of read only.

 

[Hawkeye22]

Why then would it say "in use" but then a minute or two later let you move it... but then stop doing all that if you take the read only attribute off. This is not my classic understanding of read only.

I'm not sure why it would create file read only, but read only file can't be moved. A move is actually a two step process: a) copy the file to new location. b) delete the old file. This is why a read only file can't be moved. It fails on the delete part and aborts the move. You should however have no problems copying a read only file unless it is being locked for exclusive use by a program.

 

[urville]

What i think i am having issue with is the Thumbs files. I'm not positive yet... but i think they are causing the fail... ugh.... Never had this issue and have had this same scenario before... wth... frustrating...

 

[urville]

Does this sound... well, sound?

Yep, I'm seeing this, too. I was clearing out some very old folders on one of our network shares, I went into one to see what the contents were, a few files and one bitmap. Went up to parent level, could not delete, got this message over and over. Saw the above and clicked on another folder, then this folder, could delete it.

Microsoft, there's a bit of a bug here...

Run gpedit.msc.
Enable the following policy: User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Explorer > Turn off the caching of thumbnails in hidden thumbs.db files

 

[melias]

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/326549

This is another one of Microsoft's features. Windows doesn't really take note of read-only setting, so the good folks at Redmond don't see this as a problem.

Seems it doesn't matter what their customers see it as...

I see it as another reason to start looking at other operating systems.