Forum Friday : Vista File Access Rights

Note : This is a sample post to show how this idea might work. It is a real answer to a real question on notes.net ( and yes, I know it’s not Friday )

Brent Quick asks :

My Vista user has another problem, we cannot refresh the design of his databases from R7 to R8. We get the following error:

Design Refresh Failed, Cannot write or create file (file or disk is read only).

The error message suggests that the user does not have the correct access to write to their notes data directory. Under normal circumstances a user would not have this access unless they are the administrator on the computer however it is easy to grant the correct rights to all users.

First open up your windows Explorer and goto the Program Files directory. Then right click on the folder for Lotus Notes and select the security menu option.

In the dialog box that pops up make sure you are on the security tab and then select ‘Users’ and grant them ‘Full Control’. This will set the folder so the user has the correct access and it should be inherited by all the files and folder under that but to make 100% sure click on the ‘Advanced’ button.

Make sure that ‘users’ still says ‘Full Control’ and then tick the ‘Apply To All Child Objects’ box and click OK. This will make sure all the files and folders have the exact same rights. Once it’s finished processing you can click on OK to dismiss the original dialog box.

Under XP this is normally all you would need to do however as you mentioned Vista I just want to remind you that one of the requirements of the Lotus Notes client on Vista is that ‘User Access protection’ is disabled so you will want to verify that settings also.