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After a set of recent Windows updates in January 2018, I have started seeing multiple permissions errors when accessing folders. The issues begin approximately 10 minutes after booting the machine. The issues are not isolated to a particular drive or even to local folders - permissions errors pop up on remote directories as well. Generally these issues arise during writes. It appears that Windows will partially delete a directory, but the directory remains until reboot. In other cases, the directory's contents need to be manually deleted through File Explorer and then the directory can be removed normally.

I don't even know where to begin diagnosing a problem like this. It's incredibly difficult to Google because there are so many different variations on permissions errors out there and this is unlike anything I have seen before. Any guidance on how to diagnose or resolve this issue would be appreciated.

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    Can you provide specifics on which folders? I am asking for a very important reason, so please, edit your question
    – Ramhound
    Commented Jan 24, 2018 at 23:59
  • Please provide a screenshot of your Windows Defender Security Center settings.
    – Ramhound
    Commented Jan 25, 2018 at 10:21
  • @Ramhound It's all folders. Nothing specific.
    – Jake
    Commented Jan 26, 2018 at 1:08
  • I wanted to see your Settings because I believe I know the reason you experienced this problem. Sounds like you took steps, so now the problem is no longer an issue, which means this is a non-issue
    – Ramhound
    Commented Jan 26, 2018 at 10:26
  • Did you happen to have a solution for this or just a rebuild? I'm in the same state, nothing runs because c:\Users\myuser access seems to be totally screwed up. Tried to reapply permissions with icacls but didn't help.
    – Brett Bim
    Commented Jul 20, 2018 at 13:56

1 Answer 1

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Upon further review I ultimately decided that this was due to corrupted install files. My event logs showed that at some point during Windows' repeating update-restart-update cycles, it forced a restart mid-update and then essentially broke the entire permissions system.

I'll refrain from commenting further on Microsoft's choices regarding forced updates, forced restarts, forced browser associations, forced Cortana integration, forced advertisements, etc.

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