Help! Lost all file permissions after upgrading Libre Office in Win 7

users
#1

I just upgraded Libre Office to Version: 4.4.7.2 in Win 7 Home Premium and it
has wrecked all my file permissions. I can no longer save files ( "You do
not have permission to save here, do you want to save in Documents
instead?") or open them.

The problem may have come from the fact that you can't run an msi file
elevated, so I had to log on as an admin user to run the msi, and the admin
user does not own the documents of the non-admin user. Whatever, it is a
big mess.

Please, please, how do I get my permissions back?

Thank you

Andy

#2

Launch as your normal user and have a look at the LibreOffice main menu Tools
-> Options -> Paths panel. Is it pointing to expected folder? Or, to
folders of the administrators group member user you used for the
installation?

If it is point to your user, but you can't edit--you may need to change
folder permissions using the OS Windows Explorer -> Properties -> Security
for the folder and take back ownership. If pointing to the admin
account--you should be able to edit in the LibreOffice Paths panel--or
simply exit LibreOffice and delete/rename your corrupt user profile.

#3

Dear Stuart,

Thank you for this very prompt reply.

Tools -> Options -> Paths entry for "Documents" is blank and I can't
edit it. (The others point to ok-looking appdata/roaming directories for
the correct user)

For My Documents, Explorer -> Properties -> Security for all users /
groups is the same ie all users are set to Full Control, with
everything Allowed except Special Permissions. However, again same for
everyone, all the Allow are grey-ed out; I can't recall if this is
normal or not. I can edit Deny, but I can't edit allow.

Hope this is diagnostic!

Andy

#4

Some more information . If I try to open an .odt file in File Explorer
with Libre Office, I get "locked for editing by unknown user." I can
however open the file with Wordpad (though this is no use for editing.)
I can save a new file to one of the problem directories with Wordpad,
and also re-open it with wordpad. However, if I try to open the new file
with Libro Office, I can't.

Hope this makes more sense to someone than it does to me!

Andy

#5

Andy,

Have you cleared your user profile and allowed it to rebuild?

https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/UserProfile

That really is the first step.

Otherwise, seems like a problem with the registered temp folder.

Here is a clip of a correctly configured Tools -> Options -> Paths panel for
LO 5.1.0 (would be same on Vista, 7, 8, 8.1 and 10).

<http://nabble.documentfoundation.org/file/n4173085/LO_ToolsOptionsPaths_Windows7-10.png>

If clearing your user profile does not resolve--Next step is to do a
complete uninstallation, and clean install.

1. Remove (or rename) all of the LO User profile's, e.g.
C:\Users\<usernames>\AppData\Roaming\LibreOffice
2. Login as an administrator's group member, and uninstall LibreOffice.
3. Clean the Windows registry:
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\The Document Foundation
   HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\The Document Foundation (for all users)
4. launch a command prompt, change directory to your download, and with CLI
issue command "msiexec.exe /i LibreOffice_4.4.7.2_Win_x86.msi /L*v
installLog.txt" This will log the installation should there still be
issues.
5. Log out and back in as your user. Launch LibreOffice to check if that
resolved the path issues.

Stuart

#6

Hi :slight_smile:
Just to settle your mind a bit by reducing some of the variables. None of
this means that there is no problem. Clearly there is, but Stuart is one
of the top stars on this mailing list. Everyone here is amazing imo, but
some people such as Stuart take it up a few notches.

In Windows the "Admin User", as with the "Super User" in Gnu&Linux, should
be able to read/write everywhere. Installing programs as
AdminUser/SuperUser is normally the only way to install things - whether by
elevating a normal user (in Gnu&Linux sudo, as in "do as SuperUser") or by
directly logging in as an AdminUser/SuperUser (Gnu&Linux has a default one
called "Root"), both ways should produce almost identical results.

Having installed a program as Admin/SuperUser the program 'should' then be
run by normal users. Clearly this is where the problem is showing up in
this particular case. However the problem may have occured during the
install process. Clearly it's not running the way it normally does, ie the
way it 'should'.

Renaming the User Profile fixes many weird things that shouldn't be going
wrong and a reinstall/upgrade 'should' go smoothly. So it's definitely a
good thing to try early on.
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile: