Fix for Desktop icons have padlocks after downgrading from Win 10 to Win 7
October 28, 2015
My primary home computer is a self built Windows 7 Home Premium, 32 bit PC. My secondary computer is a Dell Latitude laptop, which I keep in my shop. Back in early September, I upgraded the laptop from Windows 7 to Windows 10. To this day, everything has continued to work excellently on the laptop. Based on that success I decided to try upgrading my main "production" computer to Windows 10.
After trying out Windows 10 for three days in October, 2015, I encountered some software compatibility and windows update problems that left me more and more aggravated. I decided that I would downgrade the computer to Windows 7 and wait for more updates to both Windows 10 and hopefully, some of the affected programs.
Since I chose to downgrade/rollback to my previous O.S. within 30 days, that option was found in the Start menu by clicking on "Settings" > "Update & Security" > "Recovery." You should see a "Go back to Windows (7 | 8 | 8.1)" option, with a "Get Started" button. Click on Get Started and answer the questionnaire about why you want to roll back, then click "Next" to continue the downgrade process.
Note: if more than 30 days has passed since you upgraded to Windows 10, the rollback option will disappear. You will have to restore from a saved image file, or do a clean install of your previous operating system.
All told, the rollback to Windows 7 went fairly well, as my accounts and settings were still intact and my installed programs still functioned as before. However, some things got screwed up in the process. Among those screw-ups, after downgrading and logging back into Windows 7, many desktop icons now had a padlock in the icons, where shortcut arrows used to be. This happened to my Administrator level and Standard User accounts.
Those locks were never there before! It took a little sleuthing to learn a fix for this event, as well as to understand what caused it. Here's how I fixed them and a few other new problems.
The padlocks on the desktop icons turned out to be indications that incorrect user permissions had been applied to them. The problem was created during the downgrade from Windows 10 to Windows 7.
My research landed me on a Microsoft forum where an MVP posted his suggestion, which when I applied it, worked for me. I had to change the way the permissions were inherited and passed on down to the user's files and folders. It sounds more complicated than it is.
The following actions are best performed by using an administrator level account. That way all other user accounts can be fixed during the same session. Alternately, a less privileged account can be used by inputting the administrator's password at a UAC prompt from within a Standard User account. Further, it is best to close all non-essential programs and avoid the procedure while any system backups are happening. The less you have running, the faster the changes will take effect!
Open a folder view of (My) Computer by double-clicking on the desktop icon. if you don't have that desktop icon, click on the Start orb to open the Start Menu and look in the right side pane for the word: "Computer" and left-click on it (it becomes a button). If you don't have that link either, right click in any empty space in the Taskbar on the bottom of your screen and select "Properties" - which opens the "Taskbar and Start Menu Properties" box.
From the above Properties box, click on the "Start Menu" tab, then click on the Customize button. When "Customize Start Menu" opens, the first item on top should be labeled "Computer." Select the radio option "Display as a link" and click OK on the bottom to close the Customize box. Click "Apply" on the bottom right of the Taskbar and Start Menu Properties, then OK to close it out. There should now be a "Computer" button link on the right side pane of the Start Menu.
If you are running Windows 10 and having the same problem of padlocks on your icons, the former "Computer" link is now labeled: "This PC."
When the (My) Computer or This PC window opens, double click on the "Local Disk (C:)" icon (or whatever other label exists for the primary operating system drive). When the contents of disk C: opens, scroll down alphabetically to "Users" and (double) click to open/expand it. Find your logged in user names and one at a time, perform these steps.
- Right-click on the account user's name (e.g. Owner, Administrator, Default, your name, etc) and when the flyout options appear, left-select the bottom option: "Properties."
- There will be 5 or more tabs along the top of the Properties box. Click on "Security."
- Near the bottom of the Security box, click on the "Advanced" button
- On the "Permissions" tab, click on "Change Permissions."
- Find your user name and see if the correct control permission is listed. Individual users typically have Full Control. You can edit individual permissions for each user account by clicking the "Edit" button. Add or remove check marks as you see fit. Leave them alone if in doubt. Then click OK to return to the Advanced Security Settings box.
- Click to highlight the user name in question. With the user name highlighted, place a check mark in both of the option boxes near the bottom. They are: "Include inheritable permissions from this object's parent" and "Replace all child object permissions .with inheritable permissions from this object"
- Click "Apply" and wait for the permissions to propagate. This may take a while, depending on how much data you have inside your personal user accounts.
- When all the file permissions have been changed, click on the next user name that has padlocks on the icons and do the same things. Leave "System" alone!
- When you are finished changing permissions, click the OK button to exit.
- Click OK on the first User Name box to close it.
