How to fix “You don’t currently have permission to access this folder” or any folder access in Windows Vista/Windows 7

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After you have done a fresh install of Windows Vista or Windows 7, you might encounter the “you don’t currently have permission to access this folder” warning, meaning you’ve lost your folder access privileges. Most frequently, this happens when you try to access a folder on other partition than the Windows partition, and that folder retained the permissions/user privileges from the previous Windows install.

To get rid of this annoying folder access problem, follow the steps below:

1. Right-click the folder you can’t access and go to Properties->Security tab
   

   Fodler access problems are usually security-related

2. Go to Advanced and click the Owner tab, then click the Edit button, lower in the window
   

   In order to access the folder, you must change its ownership

3. In the bottom half of the window, under Change owner to, click on your username, then check the Replace owner on subcontainers and objects . Hit OK until all the windows are closed. You may have to wait for some operations to complete. Voila! You got back your folder access rights.
   

   This is the most important step in regaining access to your folders

   This should be it now. If the problem persists, you need to make further adjustments:

4. Repeat step 1 and in the Security tab click the Edit button
   

   Sometimes it's necessary to edit permissions

5. Hit the Add button and type your name in the white area, then click on Check names
   

   You must add your username to the list of folder owners

   

   Check your username to make sure it's right

6. Hit OK only once! You’re now back to the security page. Select your username from the list in the upper part and check Full Control in the Allow column in the lower part of the window to give your account full folder access privileges
   

   Give yourself full control of the folder

   That’s it! Folder access rights are back to normal.