Been running Win 7 Pro 64-bit fine for several months; alll of a sudden, many folder icons on the desktop now have the addition of little padlocks. What the heck? What does it mean? What did I do? What am I missing? And, if I move the “padlocked” folder to another desktop folder, the padlocks disappear!
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Some folder icons now show padlocks?
Home » Forums » AskWoody support » Windows » Windows 7 » Questions: Windows 7 » Some folder icons now show padlocks?
- This topic has 13 replies, 10 voices, and was last updated 13 years, 8 months ago.
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fuzzmanks
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WSAuggie
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joep517
AskWoody MVPOctober 10, 2011 at 11:33 am #1301427The padlock icon means that Windows thinks your account does not have access to those folders. You should be able to take ownership of the folder to remove the padlocks.
Additionally, some process appears to have changed the permissions on the folders. You should run a complete malware scan just to be safe.
Joe
--Joe
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WSjwitalka
AskWoody LoungerOctober 10, 2011 at 3:57 pm #1301440The padlock icon means that Windows thinks your account does not have access to those folders
Not true Joe. I have several folders on my D drive with the padlock Icon that I have no trouble accessing. All these folders are included in one of my Libraries.
From How to remove the lock icon:
The lock icon basically indicates that the file or folder has limited user access. It can only be accessed by you, and not any one else on your computer.See the web site for details on how to remove the lock icon.
Jerry
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joep517
AskWoody MVPOctober 10, 2011 at 6:41 pm #1301450@Jerry, there are several different descriptions floating around the ‘net about the padlock icon. I chose a different version than you did. I’ve seen another that says it is because “System” owns the folder and all user accounts are restricted. Unfortunately, I’ve yet to find anything on the main Technet or MSDN sites (i.e. not the support site).
Joe
--Joe
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WSjwitalka
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WSTheAncient
AskWoody LoungerOctober 13, 2011 at 9:47 am #1301820You may wish to check out Raymond Chen’s blog at http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2009/12/09/9934348.aspx
According to this blog, the padlock “…..means that you have a private item in a non-private directory…” He goes on to explain:
“A private item is an item where the only user account with access is you.¹ You create one of these, for example, by going to the sharing wizard and saying Share with: Nobody. To avoid clutter, the overlay is shown only when there is a transition from non-private to private. (Otherwise you’d have a lock overlay on everything in your Documents folder, for example.) ”
(Raymond does work for Microsoft although I don’t know if he speaks for MS) -
WScheryllepage
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WSlesle
AskWoody LoungerOctober 15, 2011 at 3:31 pm #1302293(Raymond does work for Microsoft although I don’t know if he speaks for MS) Uh, actually it’s the other way ’round: When Raymond Chen speaks, MS listens! His job title is Principal Software Design Engineer. Raymond Chen, Microsoft’s Chuck Norris http://microsoftjobsblog.com/blog/raymond-chen/
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