removing read only attributes

I have several discs with info saved from my pc over time. I was checking just what was on them and in one case went to change a spelling mistake. A dialogue box said the document was read only and that I needed administrative rights to change the attributes. When I clicked on continue and cleared the read only box I clicked on apply and ok. A dialogue box said 'an error had occcured in changing the attributes. Access is denied'. I am the administrator on the pc. What I actually want to do is put some of the info back onto my pc and put it in relevant folders already holding similar info. Do they have to remain read only files on doing this? Thanks for reading and in advance for any help offered. hedley

Hi Hedley93

A dialogue box said the document was read only

Try saving this file(once you have opened it) to your desktop (or somewhere you can find it easily) I like to put a Z in front of the filename, so I can easily identify it…..
eg
If the old file name was for example
myoldcar.doc
then I would save it as
zmyoldcar.doc
Now make your alterations in the the document, save the changes and it should all be plane saling from there.
Regards
paws

Thanks for the reply. Thanks for the info. If I save the doc or whatever from a cd/dvd to a drive on the pc by renaming it, once it is on the desktop/hard drive, can I open it and save the file under the original name. Thanks for the help. hedley

Hi Headley, Yes you can.
and
if you copy across a whole disc or a whole directory/folder to your computer (say to your Documents folder) then by right clicking on the folder you have just copied over, you can remove the "read only" attibutes.

Most files when copied to a CD or DVD have a read only attribute automatically assigned..and this is fine when reading the file direct from the CD/DVD, however it can be troublesome when copying stuff from CD/DVD to your Computer's hard drive, if you want to amend it (as you have found) so copy it across, then right click and remove the "read only" attribute and you should be good to go
Regards
paws

Where did you get the message saying the document was read only? Were you trying to edit it on the CD or had you copied it to your hard drive first?

Once you copy them to your hard drive, you can use attrib from a Command Prompt window to remove the Read Only attribute. If you get an error message then you need to take Ownership of the file first. Easiest way to take ownership is to copy them all into a temp folder then take ownership of the folder.

See this article on how to do this. Download and run the .reg file and a Take Ownership selection is added to the right click context menu. Very nice:

Take Ownership Shortcut - Windows 7

You can also use the takeown command to take ownership of files and folders. For instance, to take ownership of the C:\Windows folder tree:

takeown /F C:\Windows /R

Enter takeown /? for more info.

Thank you for all the replies. They are all very helpful. Ztrucker, I have printed out the article on the link you gave and will follow it. Hopefully, I'll be able to do it right. Thanks again for all the help. Much appreciated, as always. hedley

You're welcome, hope you get it worked out.