One time Windows told me I needed admin privileges to edit s file. I had admin privileges.
this post was submitted on 27 Jun 2025
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Just because you have admin rights doesn't mean the process you've invoked does. Unless you specifically elevate it or the process asks to elevate, it'll run unprivileged.
You needed permission from the SYSTEM or TrustedInstaller account.
Which you can give to yourself if you are admin.
Last time I did that it didn't work so I figured I will restart and it will recognize then. Windows got a 30 minute update.
When I logged back in my account was gone and still asked for a password. My old password didn't work.
Recovery option also fucked my grub. (Probably just the EFI now that I think about it.)
That last bit about GRUB is why I never put Windows on the same drive as my Arch, btw install. If they both have their own EFI partitions, Windows doesn't mess with Linux.
Ah ah ah! You didn’t say the magic word!
sudo edit the file!
…
Ah ah ah! You didn’t say the secret word right after!
Think about this: let’s say you run a program. Do you want that program to be able to take over the computer and read all your files from now on and send the data to a remote third party?
Probably not.
Permissions were created to stop programs from doing that. By running most software without admin permissions you limit the scope of the damage the software can cause. Software you trust even less should be run with even fewer permissions than a normal user account.
The system is imperfect though. A capability-based system is better. It allows the user to control which specific features of the operating system a running program is allowed to access. For example, a program may request access to location services in order to access your GPS coordinates. You can deny this to prevent the program from tracking you without otherwise preventing the software from running.
You forgot the fact that there might be other people using the same computer and they shouldn't be able to access the others files.
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Can't shutdown there is a running program
/Me finger immediately goes to the power switch
I still remember the biggest brainfart moment as a child. I was playing video games on my computer, and kinda just looked around. On the pc was a turbo button, so i pressed it, turbo makes games faster. I looked again and one button said power. I wonder what that doe... I'm dumb.
Ah, the turbo button. Where we first learned our devices can lie to us.
Is this why people run Arch instead or atomic linux distros?
Lol, I had arch tell me that literally last night while I was updating Nvidia drivers. Just reopened dolphin as admin and deleted what I needed to.
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To own something is to control it.
You clearly don't have control, therefore you don't own it, microsoft does. You can fix that by seizing the means of computation and install linux.
Just to have linux be even more ruthless with its permission schemes.
When you switch to an admin account on Windows, there are still files owned by "TrustedInstaller" that you can't touch, and processes owned by "System" that you can't terminate.
Linux doesn't have that. When you switch to root, you can kill any process. You can modify or delete any file.
Sometimes (often?) at your own peril!
To anyone else following, if you're mucking around with "I am Root/Admin. OBEY ME!!" you had better have important data backed up!
I once thought an unlisted BTRFS snapshot was an orphan folder taking up space. No permission? Nonsense! Obey my commands!
Suddenly not even terminal commands worked. ("Command 'cd'/'ls'/whatever not found")
. . . it was the "writable snapshot" currently mounted, and the system was so borked it couldn't rollback, and I needed to completely reinstall.
Fortunately I had things backed up on another drive. Live and learn! But that could have been TRAGIC.
sudo edit this file!
What the hell are you talking about? Permissions issues in Windows have absolutely nothing to do with Microsoft owning your files.
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Or just ... right click to change ownership...
You don't have to change your whole OS because you can't access a file. I thought you Linux users knew how to use technology properly. But it seems you are "power users" instead.
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EZ fix i learnt from hunter2
chmod 777 -R /
sudo ufw allow 22
hunter2 ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL
"takeown /f c: icacls c:" changed my life. Windows literally has trusted installer listed as owning most of your hard drive on every fresh install, but that is negotiable. at least for the stuff you need.
This fuckin line
Childhood me: "Whats he mean by that?"
My parents: "[explains slavery]"
Me: ...
Them: ...
Thanks, Disney!
I still love the soundtrack.
sudo stinking effer!
Wrong OS.
"Own me? Maybe my physical form - but I don't have to do shit for you if you don't treat me with respect! Want to edit that file without my permission? Go ahead and do it yourself - take a magnetic needle and open up the HDD case yourself!"
So... Go try that and notice Windows is basically always encrypted at rest nowadays.
You can always decap your TPM and use a STM to read the static charges on its memory... But, good luck doing that.