Folder keeps changing back to read-only. What permissions setup causes this in Windows?

Question

I think I'm going crazy. Every time I create a folder it automatically is set to readonly, but I can still then rename the folder or add folders to it. If I attempt to uncheck the readonly flag it becomes checked again when I next open the folder properties. What the heck? Could my IT dept really have set up a policy like this somehow? If so, how?

Seems crazy that Windows would even do this -- no errors when I uncheck read-only and hit ok but the change fails.

Also, it is the halfway checked state -- greyed out and checked, but uncheckable.

Answer 1

The actual read-only flag on a folder is used by Windows to mark that the folder has special customizations, but doesn't restrict write access to the folder or its contents.

When you look at a folder's properties, the read-only box will always show the half-way gray state. This means "don't make any changes to read-only flag on the files in this folder". You can check (or clear) the box to mean "make all the files in this folder read-only (or read/write)."

See You cannot view or change the Read-only or the System attributes of folders in Windows Server 2003, in Windows XP, in Windows Vista or in Windows 7 for more info. If you really want to modify the read-only flag for a folder, it shows you how to use the attrib command to do that.