Solve "you don't have permission to save to this location"

Question

I was trying to save a Camtasia file, and got this error:

Needless to say, I work on my own laptop PC, and there are no administrators I can contact (I simply love Microsoft's 'contact your administrator' message). I tried saving a new notepad file, and got the same error.

I am the administrator on my PC:

I've checked the security properties of the folder in question, and verified that Administrator group has full permissions.

So, why does this message show up and how to fix the issue so I can save files on my PC wherever the hell I want?

Solution

Folders in Program Files or Program Files (x86) will be limited to being written to only by System groups or Administrator groups by default. Quite often the Administrator group or SYSTEM will be the owner of the folder.

The default permissions will usually allow users in the Administrator group full control:

But as you've spotted, your account is in the Administrator group, but you can't write in it.

For the simple reason that you aren't running with those elevated privileges. You are running your account as a normal user, which, if you check the first screenshot, only has Read & execute permissions to the folder.

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The "solution" is to not write in this folder, as it could cause problems updating, difficulty finding your files, or might work fine but it's not really a logical place to look for a video. That's not to mention the risk of accidentally overwriting a critical file needed by the application.

Of course, if you want to do so regardless, you can run the program in question as an administrator:

Now it'll be within the correct privilege group.

But as stated, this isn't typically a very good idea, and I'd recommend keeping programs and their data separated.