Had an interesting experience.

There is a file I keep with some reference material.  For a number of years I’ve had this in the root directory of the drive on most of my machines.  I tried to update it the other day.

I couldn’t.

Windows 7 apparently would not let me modify anything in the top-level directory, even though properties showed that I had full control.  I tried a variety of different ways to make these permissions effective.  No dice.

Eventually I found myself somewhere that offered to let me blow off permissions for the root directory.  Permanently.

I thought it over, and eventually decided not to.  Generally, I’d agree that having the ability to write to the root directory might possibly be dangerous, in a somewhat bizarre set of circumstances.  But I decided that moving the file wasn’t that much of an issue.  So I let the permissions lie.

But I’m left with some questions.  My first reaction, once I got to the screen that would let me change the permissions, was to blow them away.  I was so frustrated by the roadblocks and lack of information provided by Windows 7 that I probably wasn’t thinking completely clearly.  And I’d suspect I’m not alone in this.

The other question is: why on earth did Windows 7 allow me to put the files there in the first place, but not allow me to modify them?  Isn’t the ability to put a file there in the first place even more of a security risk?