Security options gone, please return

[TubaOrNotTuba]

One of the best things to use File Manager for, and I maintain a Win2003/XP VMs just for this issue, is to fix the sometimes ridiculously complex file/folder permissions issues found in Windows Vista/2008 and later builds. Since File Manager doesn't understand or respect inheritance I even saw Microsoft support engineers use it to fix broken permissions issues back in the day.

I vote for adding back the Security menu and its submenus from the last build of winfile.exe from NT 4.0 days. I'd love to be able to never have to boot a 2003/XP VM again for this purpose. Yes, I get it, there are other options, but NONE as direct and concise as using File Manager to fix the system that Microsoft never bothered to fix on its own.

[craigwi]

In the latest build you can use Alt+Enter to get to the "normal" properties of an item, which includes a Security tab. Does that meet your needs?

[TubaOrNotTuba]

No, because that brings up the Win10/2016 permissions options not the File Manager permissions options. Honestly, starting in Vista, the permissions features of Windows created as many problems as they solved. Often ownership is difficult, inheritance often causes more problems than it fixes, and too many times fixing permissions issues just aren't possible. Like I said, I all too often have to use winfile.exe on a XP/2003 to fix 2008 or later issues. File Manager just ignores all the new junk added in Vista/2008, removes it, and applies XP/2003 and earlier NTFS permissions. Fixes many problems quickly. Guess I'll keep my XP/2003 VMs around.

[yuhong]

AFAIK, WinFile depended on acledit.dll from Windows to edit permissions, but that had been stubbed in Vista and now just display a dialog saying that it is no longer supported.

[craigwi]

@yuhong you are correct. See wfinfo.c, line 1781: acledit.dll is still loaded, but the call to get FMExtensionProcW entry point fails and thus the Security menu is deleted. BTW, I fixed a bug early on here: if the child window was maximized at startup, the wrong menu was deleted.

Thus, all of the old functionality as present in this code base remains.

I suppose I could dig around for the sources to acledit.dll.

[ZanderBrown]

Open Sourcing Win3/NT4 one component at a time...

If your taking requests Program Manager might be nice 😆

[yuhong]

I wonder if Progman was killed in XP SP2 because of security BTW, given that it had to parse .grp files.

[craigwi]

@ZanderBrown that would be a full time job! I already have one.