Reading an XP USB external HD on a Vista machine

[Cyril N. Alberga]

I wanted to transfer some photos from a USB external harddrive from my XP
machine to a machine running Vista. When I plugged the drive in it appeared in
the thing I found in Vista (I don't use it) that looked most like Windows
Explorer, but when I tried to access some files I got a message that it couldn't
read them because it wasn't authorized.

What do I have to do to make the files available to Vista, without effecting the
use of the drive on my XP machines?

Note that my friend with the Vista machine is not computer literate, while I am,
but have had no experience with Vista.

Cyril Alberga

[Steve Winograd [MS-MVP]]

Take ownership of the files, as described here:

http://www.tipandtrick.net/2008/how-to-take-ownership-and-full-control-permissions-of-files-and-folders-in-vista/
--
Best Wishes,
Steve Winograd, MS-MVP (Windows Desktop Experience)

Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Program
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com

[David]

but won't taking ownership of the files potentially cause problems when he
puts the drive back in his XP machine?

--
Best regards,
Dave Colliver.
http://www.AshfieldFOCUS.com
~~
http://www.FOCUSPortals.com - Local franchises available

[Steve Winograd [MS-MVP]]

On Sat, 15 Aug 2009 10:55:58 +0100, "David"
<david.col...@revilloc.REMOVETHIS.com> wrote:

>>>I wanted to transfer some photos from a USB external harddrive from my XP
>>>machine to a machine running Vista. When I plugged the drive in it appeared in
>>>the thing I found in Vista (I don't use it) that looked most like Windows
>>>Explorer, but when I tried to access some files I got a message that it couldn't
>>>read them because it wasn't authorized.
>>>
>>>What do I have to do to make the files available to Vista, without effecting the
>>>use of the drive on my XP machines?
>>>
>>>Note that my friend with the Vista machine is not computer literate, while I am,
>>>but have had no experience with Vista.
>>>
>>>Cyril Alberga
>>

>>Take ownership of the files, as described here:
>>
>>http://www.tipandtrick.net/2008/how-to-take-ownership-and-full-control-permissions-of-files-and-folders-in-vista/
>

>but won't taking ownership of the files potentially cause problems when he
>puts the drive back in his XP machine?

If there's a problem, he can take ownership when the drive is on XP,
too.

To avoid such problems, log into both computers with the same user
name and password, or create the Vista account on XP and the XP
account on Vista.