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Subject: RE: A FAQ regarding defrag and permissions of nonadmin files?
Date: Tue, 8 Apr 2008 19:37:46 +0100
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Gmane User wrote on 08 April 2008 18:41:

>  >   Or in other words, could this thread please be TITTTL'd?  >
>  >     cheers, DaveK
> 
> Arg.  Andrew.  My thread TITTTL'd!  :(

  Uhh, you say that like it's a bad thing, but as long as you're nice to the
hippos, there's really no problem carrying on any thread at all over on the
talk list!  It's not an admonishment, it's a polite request.

> I thought this was cygwin related because all the affected files are
> mostly involved with my use of Cygwin.

  No, because that's not what "cygwin-related" means.  That's like saying a
thread entirely about notepad is "cygwin-related", because you could use
notepad for editing files to use with cygwin, and a thread about photoshop
filters is "cygwin-related", because you might be editing a screenshot of
cygwin apps running, and a thread about MS Word is cygwin-related, because you
might be writing a document about cygwin.

  In other words, by that definition, absolutely everything in the entire
universe is cygwin related.

  However, by the normal standard for "on-topic"ness, use of standard tools in
standard ways is not on-topic, whether those "standard ways" affect
cygwin-related files or not.

  (And by convention, topicality metadiscussions are always on-topic).

>  And normal Windows users don't
> go about finangling file permissions in the manner that unix users do.

  Depends what you call "normal" :-)  I think what you say is probably right
for home users, but serious developers working on shared machines in a domain
very often use complex permissions.

> Hence (I thought) they won't often encounter similar issues with
> defrag related to permissions.  However, no one else has chimed in
> about similar problems, so perhaps the problem goes beyond cygwin and
> unix file permissions on a Windows box.

  Yep.  The whole admins-can-have-backup-rights thing?  That covers it, with
the one exception that you've discovered the most amazingly poorly-programmed
defragger in the world, the only one anywhere that doesn't use the
backup-rights permissions when it operates.  

> I will try to further to resolve it in a windows/defrag forum.

  I'm fairly sure your solution can be summed up in a single sentence:  "Throw
it away and get a better defragger"!

> Just as a wrap-up, however, can a few people please say whether they
> actually set their nonadmin files to go-rwx, and are actually able to
> defrag their whole disk without stubborn user files?  

  Yes, yes, yes.  I have lots of files with all sorts of weird perms, some
belong to SYSTEM and can't be opened by an administrator, some have no rights
at all, etc. etc. etc.; they've never caused me any problems at all with the
standard built-in windows defragger, nor with the trial versions of DKLite,
which is the only other one I've used.

  IOW, we can eliminate cygwin from the equation here.

> I don't even
> know whether I'm an exception in this practice of setting file
> permissions, aside from the defrag problem. 

  No, setting lots of different perms is absolutely bog-standard, and no other
defragger has this kind of trouble.

  If you have further questions about permissions and defragging and windows-y
stuff, feel free to raise it on the talk-list, I'll be there to discuss it if
you do.

    cheers,
      DaveK

-- 
Can't think of a witty .sigline today....


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