File copying denied from XP system “public” to Win 10 system

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I’m having a very inconsistent problem with copying files from my remaining XP system to my Windows 10 system. Due to development software in use on the XP system, I’m keeping it active but without any use of a browser or email, and behind a Comodo firewall. Because of the development software and a couple of others that won’t install under Windows 10, I’ve settled on using its “public” folder as my main location for files shared across my network, with an image backup system protecting it, and an identical disk drive ready in case the current one fails.

My problem is that from time to time, Windows 10 (upgraded from Windows 8) fails to copy a file from the public folder of the XP system. Instead I receive a “failed to read” error.

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If I try to force it as “Administrator” (despite using an admin account), I may get a UAC prompt asking if I want to allow this to change my system, and the copy still fails. Yet, often the copy operation will work without a problem. In fact, just now I successfully copied a few files from subfolders of Public into the Win 10’s Dropbox folder. When I tried the files that failed, they continued to fail. When (from the XP system) I copied those files to a different subfolder of Public, then (from Windows 10) tried to copy them to the Win 10 system, it worked!

The Public folder on the XP system has been marked “share this folder on the network” and “allow network users to change my files,” so there doesn’t seem to be anything obvious.

With the lapse of support for XP from Dropbox, I am trying to set up a batch command (under Scheduled Tasks on the Win 10 system) to use XCOPY to “sweep” any files I drop into a designated folder on the XP system. The batch file itself has run successfully a couple of times, but it consistently abends with “Access denied” when run on schedule, and running it manually later also fails.

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This makes little sense and I can’t see a pattern in what is happening, so I’m hoping someone might have some ideas. Thanks!

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I suspect it’s a file permission. not a share one. Check that the files have full rights for everyone – right click, Properties, Security.

As it’s a dev system I would virtualize it and run it on your normal box. No issues with hardware failure then, not to mention ease of access.

cheers, Paul

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From the XP system, the files have no security tab, but are not marked “readonly” or “hidden.” From the Win 10 system, the Security tab says “You do not have permission to edit or view this object’s permission settings.” Other files in other subfolders of Public are showing “normal” security settings and can be copied.

The files that I cannot copy are in a subfolder of Public that I marked to “Share with other users on the network” in an attempt to solve this problem (about a week ago). It seemed to work (manually), then it stopped working. So after your reply I UNmarked it for sharing (assuming that the global setting for Public would then become the default) and the copy worked. However, marking the folder for sharing in order to make the copy work and then unmarking it in order to make the copy work isn’t a set of evidence that leads me to trust the results. I guess I will have to keep observing.

(To be complete, note that one of the files in question is created by running a 7-Zip command line on the XP system from a batch file that then terminates. The other is a checksum text file created by running FCIV on the first file.)

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