Another problem

[Workingman]

John, you could try disabling UAC first and see what happens.

Control Panel>>>Action Centre>>>Change Use Account Control settings.... move the slider to the bottom then OK your way out. If that works then you should be OK.

If not please try installing FreeOffice and see how it works with your files before ditching Open Office.

If FreeOffice does the job then removing Open Office will certainly free up space.

[Suff]

Hi Aggers,

Sadly I believe that Windows has set security on your files because OpenOffice was running in privileged mode. Just removing the offending program does not change the permissions set on the files.

In Context "user" is the name you are shown when you log into the computer. The one on the login screen where it asks for your password.

That is the "Account" you are using to "Use" the computer. Hence User or User Account.

Windows needs to know who is using the computer so it can secure your data and differentiate between different User Accounts. This is a bit of a misnomer given that, often, only one person uses a Windows computer, but it is the mechanism in place to stop hackers from taking over your system without your knowledge.

The problem is that whey you say "Yes" to the box which asks if the program can access your hard drive, the programs user account is switched from the one you log in with to TrustedInstaller. TrustedInstaller is a system account you can't get at and has the highest levels of access to the system. Naturally if you save a document when running as TrustedInstaller, the Administrators group will own it and you're going to have to give access for your own account to access it when you want to use it. Every Single Time.

You can see the difference quite easily by doing the following.

Right Click on the windows flag on the task bar. Select Command Prompt from the list. If you look at the text the bottom line will read c:\users\[your user account]

Now close that prompt and right click on the windows flag again. Select Command Prompt Admin.

You will see the last line says c:\windows\system32. This is because TrustedInstaller is a system account and has no user directory. Anything you create with that command prompt will have Administrative permissions, not yours.

This is very easy to see. Leave the admin command prompt open. type

cd \ press enter
copy con hello.txt press enter
hello press enter
F6 (function key 6) or Ctrl and the Z key then press enter.

Open File Explorer and look at the C drive. You will see a file called hello.txt. click on it and you open Notepad and the file says hello in the text.

Now type in hello2 in notepad. Try to save it and it will come up with Save As. You don't have permission to save it.

Exit out and close Notepad. Right click on hello.txt in file explorer and select the security tab. Click on the users entry at the bottom of the list and you will see that ordinary users of the computer only have Read and Read&Execute permission.

This is Exactly the problem you are facing with your files and that problem won't go away by removing OpenOffice. We need to find the files and reset that security so that your user account has administrative access to all directories and files you use with OpenOffice.

Hope this makes sense and is easy enough to follow.

[AliasAggers]

Just to wind-up this thread, I decided that the matter was getting far beyond my capability of handling it, in spite of the
well-meaning advice received from my friends here. I did, therefore, get a local computer doctor in to sort out the problems
on both of my laptops, which are now functioning O.K. I was told that the problem of not being able to access my documents
was due to something I had done, and was not caused by anything Open Office had done. Both my laptops, (ancient and modern)
are now working correctly (fingers crossed!).

[Suff]

Aggers,

It's quite possible you switched on running OpenOffice as admin by mistake. That would have caused this issue. The problem is, if you had no clue what you had done, how would you have known when Windows simply asks if you want to give OpenOffice access to use the hard drive???

It's a minefield.

MS don't really give you a satisfactory answer to the issue. Yes you can switch User Account Control off, but then that stops other stuff from running if it's designed only to work with it.

Hopefully you won't have more issues now.