I’m running a Windows Server 2003 SP2 R2 file server that also runs secondary DNS. We have a lot of documents on our file share and since I’ve started (about 2 months ago) I’ve seen about 30+ files that are completely inaccessible. Right click menu shows limited options compared to unaffected files. Double clicking does nothing, deleting does nothing, right click > open does nothing, right click > open with opens the the program i select but returns an access denied error message. I’ve tried Forcing permissions on all child objects in the folder to no avail, also forced ownership on all sub folders/files to no avail. I tried using XCACLS.VBS (vb script used for changing permissions in command window) and the files don’t even show up when i do a lookup to see permissions for all files in the directory.
*note these steps are done as Domain Admin*
The files have no owner, no attributes (H/A), it only shows the last time that it was modified (sometime last year).
I’ve figured out that if i copy the folder to a different location (my desktop for example) it forces my ownership/permission set onto the files and allows me to open them, I’ve reviewed some of the documents and they appear to be in tact and uncorrupted.
I’m just curious as to what could be causing this issue, at first i though maybe the files were quarantined by SAV but obviously this is not the case. It can’t be a group policy/share permission/NTFS permission issue as there are other files in the same directory that i can open without issue.
I have a feeling it has something to do with the fact that all these files were copied to the directory at some point in time in the last couple years. I know that when you copy/move a file from one system on the network to another it does not keep it’s permission settings however they should still have read/write access to the files based on their group security privileges for the specific folder, and Domain Administrator should still have full control which it clearly does not.
Any insight on this would be greatly appreciated, I’d like to take steps to ensure this does not keep happening.
