"Error Applying Security - Access is denied" while changing file permissions on windows server 2008

Solution 1:

I resolved this problem by the following steps:

  1. Open a Command Prompt "As Administrator"
  2. Run the following commands:

takeown /f G:\folder /r /d y icacls G:\folder /grant administrators:F /T

REF: http://www.richardawilson.com/2013/12/an-error-occurred-while-applying.html

Solution 2:

This can happen if you really don't have access to that directory. In Windows you CAN lock out the administrator. Ran into this last week, in fact. Check the permissions on that directory to ensure that Administrators is in the list. If you can't even do that, you'll have to take ownership of the folder first (it's a tab in the Advanced Permissions dialog screen).


Solution 3:

If anyone else comes across this problem - it happened for me when I wanted to add a service account user to a folder containing thousands of files and the error came up for a lot of them. MDSN says that if you click Continue it still applies the permission on that file. Problem is nobody wants to click it thousands of times.

What worked at the end was changing ownership (Security tab -> Advanced -> Ownership). I changed ownership to a different user than original and applied it to all sub folders. After it finished I changed it back to original owner and again opted to apply to all sub folders.

After you do that the error no longer occurs when applying permissions. Seems like the above procedure resets any errors there are on folders and files.