Permissions problem I don't understand

[Alan Chandler]

On Wednesday 30 Nov 2005 23:30, Matt McCutchen wrote:
> On Wed, 2005-11-30 at 18:33 +0000, Alan Chandler wrote:
> > Now I realise the problem I have examined what I am trying to see what
> > cgywin says about the directories on the laptop by running a bash shell
> > and ls -l from it.  It says all the "Standard" directories (such as "My
> > Documents") all have permissions of 555.
>
> That's because the FAT/NTFS "read only" flag is set on these
> directories.  "Read only" is an advisory flag that is independent of
> real NTFS ACLs, and the filesystem ignores "read only" on folders.  For
> this reason, the Windows Explorer people found it convenient to use
> "read only" on folders to mean "magic", i.e., Explorer should read the
> "desktop.ini" file inside, which might specify a special icon, tooltip,
> and/or view.  Windows endows My Documents, My Pictures, and a few other
> folders with magic upon creation; one can also make a folder magic by
> creating a "desktop.ini" and setting read-only by hand (at a DOS prompt;
> Windows Explorer won't let you).
>

Typical Microsoft - hack a perfectly good feature for something else.  I just 
changed all my directories to have write permissions - and I seem to be 
working now.

-- 
Alan Chandler
http://www.chandlerfamily.org.uk
Open Source. It's the difference between trust and antitrust.