i was forced to use my Me recover disk and clean off my hard drive. i had copied my files and then installed them back on my computer. they all came back as “read only” files and in my web page manager, they are locked out.
i know i can change the settings one by one on each file but is there something i can do to change them all at once? was there something i could have done different in the beginning.
You should be able to highlight all the files, right click to bring up the menu, click on ‘properties’ and change them all that way. (Works in Win98 and WinXP, so I assume WinME will do it also, although assuming stuff with Windows tends to be hazardous…)
<< The TV told me to do it. >>
Try something like this–
Pull up a DOS shell (Start->Run, enter “command”)
in the DOS shell,
cd
attrib -R /S /D
nightsong…it worked! thank you. i was able to uncheck the “read only” and check the “archives” in one shot, thank you.
now, why in the hell does it do this in the first place?
There is also a very nice freeware utility called ReadOnly, available from cnet’s download.com, which will clear (or set) the read only attribute from a directory and all subdirectories. Very, very useful when restoring data files from CD.
tourbot: i downloaded the file and used it. thanks to all of you for your help.
I belive it sets the ‘read only’ tag when it’s getting the file off of a medium that is normally ‘read only’: CD’s and the like. Or it may be that when a file is put onto a normally read only medium, this flag is set and Windows doesn’t bother to clear it when it’s move onto a rewriteable medium. Why on earth it does this, I haven’t a clue. 
Ooo. Good util there turbot: handy for when I am shuffling my MP3 collection back and forth from CD to HD.
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it happens because bill gates is an idiot…the world’s richest idiot, but an idiot never-the-less, hahaha.
OK I’m curious, why do you think this feature is undesirable? CD-ROM is a read-only medium, so marking files on a CD-ROM as read-only makes perfect sense to me. The other alternative is that programs would try to write to it, get an error code and give the user an error message. But that’s not as elegant as detecting the read-only tag and not trying to write in the first place. And warn the user before he/she starts to edit the file.
And when I copy files from CD-ROM to hard drive, I don’t want the OS to automatically unset the read-only tag. What if it’s important data that I don’t want modified? Better to err in the side of caution, and leave files read-only.
good points all.
but there should be an acceptable alternative that the user controls.
i have been through an Me/ie6 nightmare, so this is not a good time to tell me how wonderful billy boy is. the file manager program i use to design web sites is called arachnophilia…here is what they posted on their site this week:
Until recently I wrote programs only for Windows, but like many, I have noticed that Microsoft’s originally positive behavior and attitude toward its customers has gradually evaporated, replaced by an increasingly fascist policy – greater profit, less time wasted improving its products. Over time, Microsoft’s programs have gotten worse – more and more features, less and less internal coherence. But this all pales compared to an apparent Microsoft corporate goal: complete control of the end user’s computer. It has recently been discovered that Windows XP users may have parts of their operating system replaced by Microsoft while they are on line, without any overt notification or permission. This change of policy is official – it is in very small print, but Microsoft is not trying to conceal their plans.