Can I allow open access, for all users, to all files on my PC?

Question

My wife and I share a PC, but use separate user names. We put all photos into a C:\Family folder.

Whenever I copy any files to this folder (from SD card, downloads, etc), she cannot open those files (and vice versa). The files seem to be owned by me. I've already made the owner of this folder Everyone, but the newly copied files are always owned by the current user. So to work around the issue, I open the Security settings of the Family folder, choose "Inherit settings for subfolders", and this usually goes through all files and fixes the problem, until next time.
This is obviously a huge pain.

Ideally, I'd like to completely turn off the "file ownership" feature of Windows, so that she and I would always have unrestricted access to all files (including the C:\Users folders).
But I'd also be happy knowing how I can unrestrict at least this Family folder, so that all copied files will be accessible by everyone.

Solution

You do not need to assign ownership to make sure everyone can access and use the files.

In the security tab, give both users (or the everyone user for that matter) full control rights and your problem will be solved. Even if one of the two users is owner, those with rights can still work with it, which is your ultimate goal. Windows gives the person who created the file owner by default, which means that even if that person loses accessrights, that person can always restore it until owner has been assigned to someone else.

Here's what you need to do.

1. Right click C:\Family and select Properties.
2. Go to the Security tab
3. Press the Edit... button
4. If a UAC dialog pops up press ok, or login with an administrator password if it asks for that.
5. Click the Users (computername\Users) row.
6. Click the Modify checkbox under Allow
7. Press OK

The dialog should look like this:

Any file inside your folder will now have the Modify attribute set. It'll look as follows:

Comments

[ctrl-alt-delor]

You should be able to set a default to everyone, then you only need to do it once. Then all files and directories, within C:/Family will always be assessable to everyone. (I don't know the details as not running MS-Windows.)

[Kitet]

This is incorrect. I frequently copy files as an Administrator to folder owned by me but with access rights set to Users, but STILL need to open Properties of that folder and manually propagate access rights to newly copied files. Otherwise other non-admin users can't read the files.

[LPChip]

@Kiket if that is the case for you, then you haven't set the security rights properly, or you've tried to set them at a special location. I just tested this locally on my end, and it works as expected. The folder has Users set with modify attribute, made a file and the file inherits the security setting modify for Users.

[Kitet]

Well, looks like I need to check how access rights are set in my environment, I can do that tomorrow, at work. It involves copying file (not creating in-place) from server network drive. If I, personally copy them - no one can overwrite, despite "users" having been explicitly assigned "modify", as you depicted. I will report back tomorrow.

[Andy]

@LPChip Sorry, this did not work for me. The folder already has "Everyone" set with all permissions (and each individual person has all permissions too). And yes, this works, and I have access to the files. But when I copy a file from C:\Users\Scott to C:\Family, that new file does NOT inherit the parent folder's setting, and my wife's account cannot access the file.

[Andy]

Using her account, I can BROWSE the file location, and see the file names, but trying to open one results in an access denied error. When I view the locked file's properties, it says "You must have Read permissions to view the properties of this file".

[LPChip]

Sounds like your permissions somehow got messed up. Make sure there is no Deny permission set anywhere, as it will override the Allow permission. If that doesn't fix it, consider removing all permissions and build it from the ground up. Make sure you give at least SYSTEM and Administrators write rights.