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Vista File Permission Tantrums

I came across a rather interesting/annoying problem in Windows Vista today – just like any other day with Vista really...

When one tried to save a file to a mapped drive the following error message would appear:

"There has been a network or file permission error. The network connection may be lost"

Very odd. I disconnected and reconnected the mapped drive, same thing. I checked and double-checked permissions – both share-level and NTFS permissions were all adequate. I applied as many updates/patches as I could find for Windows and Norton.

Strangely, one could copy a file from, say, the desktop into the mapped drive without any issue. But if one tried to right-click and create a new file/folder on the mapped drive the same error came up.

After trawling some forums I noticed that Offline Files reared its head quite a few times. I thought I'd try disabling it as it wasn't being used...

To do this: Hit Start, type "offline files" into the search box and then click the resultant Offline Files button that appears at the top of the Start menu. Click "Disable" and then agree to a reboot.

Happily this fixed the problem and all was well but it leaves me with a slightly bad taste in my mouth – why should one have to turn off Offline Files to be able to do some pretty bog standard file work? What if I needed Offline Files, e.g. for Folder Redirection?

Roll on Windows 7.

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