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Repost: Defrag and permissions of nonadmin files


Sorry if this appears twice.  It was submitted nearly half an hour ago, but
seems to have gone astray.   All quoting retained due to list transition.

Dave Korn wrote:
 > Gmane User wrote on 08 April 2008 18:41:
 >
 >>  >   Or in other words, could this thread please be TITTTL'd?  >
 >>  >   cheers, DaveK
 >>
 >> Arg.  Andrew.  My thread TITTTL'd!  :(
 >
 >   Uhh, you say that like it's a bad thing, but as long as you're
 >   nice to the hippos, there's really no problem carrying on any
 >   thread at all over on the talk list!  It's not an admonishment,
 >   it's a polite request.
 >
 >> I thought this was cygwin related because all the affected files
 >> are mostly involved with my use of Cygwin.
 >
 >   No, because that's not what "cygwin-related" means.  That's like
 >   saying a thread entirely about notepad is "cygwin-related",
 >   because you could use notepad for editing files to use with
 >   cygwin, and a thread about photoshop filters is "cygwin-related",
 >   because you might be editing a screenshot of cygwin apps running,
 >   and a thread about MS Word is cygwin-related, because you might be
 >   writing a document about cygwin.
 >
 >   In other words, by that definition, absolutely everything in the
 >   entire universe is cygwin related.
 >
 >   However, by the normal standard for "on-topic"ness, use of
 >   standard tools in standard ways is not on-topic, whether those
 >   "standard ways" affect cygwin-related files or not.
 >
 >   (And by convention, topicality metadiscussions are always
 >   on-topic).
 >
 >>  And normal Windows users don't go about finangling file
 >>  permissions in the manner that unix users do.
 >
 >   Depends what you call "normal" :-)  I think what you say is
 >   probably right for home users, but serious developers working on
 >   shared machines in a domain very often use complex permissions.
 >
 >> Hence (I thought) they won't often encounter similar issues with
 >> defrag related to permissions.  However, no one else has chimed in
 >> about similar problems, so perhaps the problem goes beyond cygwin
 >> and unix file permissions on a Windows box.
 >
 >   Yep.  The whole admins-can-have-backup-rights thing?  That covers
 >   it, with the one exception that you've discovered the most
 >   amazingly poorly-programmed defragger in the world, the only one
 >   anywhere that doesn't use the backup-rights permissions when it
 >   operates.

The thing is, this seems to be the behaviour (admin doesn't have
defrag rights) with three defraggers.  The admittedly bad one that
comes with Windows 2000 Professional, Ultra Defragmenter (even run at
boot time), and JkDefrag (even launched at boot time).  The last two
seem to be the most highly regarded in the freeware world, judging
from the web and usenet.

 >> I will try to further to resolve it in a windows/defrag forum.
 >
 >   I'm fairly sure your solution can be summed up in a single
 >   sentence:  "Throw it away and get a better defragger"!

As I said initially, that was the next step.  I was checking whether
this was a common problem, first.  In the process, I'm finding that it
isn't just a specific defragger.  Therefore, it seems worthwhile to
try a few more things before taking the leap.

 >> Just as a wrap-up, however, can a few people please say whether
 >> they actually set their nonadmin files to go-rwx, and are actually
 >> able to defrag their whole disk without stubborn user files?
 >
 >   Yes, yes, yes.  I have lots of files with all sorts of weird
 >   perms, some belong to SYSTEM and can't be opened by an
 >   administrator, some have no rights at all, etc. etc. etc.; they've
 >   never caused me any problems at all with the standard built-in
 >   windows defragger, nor with the trial versions of DKLite, which is
 >   the only other one I've used.

That is puzzling.  The fact that you can use the standard built-in
defragger while I can only defrag after using chmod to open up
permissions to all files.  To me, that raises questions about whether
it's the defragger at all.  My original plan was to download a trial
version of Diskkeeper.  If it worked, I would either buy it.

A (small) wrinkle is that buying software in a retail store seems to
have gone obsolete.  One has no choice but to provide credit card info
on the web.  Society has become too quick to follow technology.

 >   IOW, we can eliminate cygwin from the equation here.

IMHO, it's a possibility, at this point.  Finding the cause is the
only sure way to tell.

 >> I don't even know whether I'm an exception in this practice of
 >> setting file permissions, aside from the defrag problem.
 >
 >   No, setting lots of different perms is absolutely bog-standard,
 >   and no other defragger has this kind of trouble.
 >
 >   If you have further questions about permissions and defragging and
 >   windows-y stuff, feel free to raise it on the talk-list, I'll be
 >   there to discuss it if you do.

Interesting list!  I looked up TITTTL, but thought "talk list" was a
euphimism for some other non-list means (like email, which is not
kosher) or simply letting it die.  The list is relatively new, I see.


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