Hi, So a little while ago, I had a problem with my steam app and was unable to open it, I uninstalled steam, and tried to reinstall it, but system told me that it cant write to the X86 folder...Without finding a reason why, or a way to fix, I tried making another admin user, and everything worked fine.........until last night, it started where I couldn't open steam again, SS works, and titanfall works too, but I cant open steam

Has anyone had issues like this before? able to help? would really appreciate it, thanks

~Zarcon

Here's a regedit that gives you a "Take Ownership" context menu on folder/file right click for you to take over the ownership of a folder from the user account that you're currently on.



Just double click the "Add Take Ownership Option" and it will run a quick script. Then right click on your steam folder in program files and click take ownership.

Great thank you, so any idea why this will of happened? Will this fix the whole folder?

No idea why it happened without taking a look at it. Could be antivirus, could be virus, could be legitimate program, could be something you did, could be something you didn't do etc.

Actually, take ownership of the entire program files folder and you should be okay. It will take ownership of all of the sub folders and files as well.

So, I've done the script, 'took ownership' and still having problems

My antivirus (Avast) has been running since I bought the PC last year, I've not installed anything apart from Titanfall, and even after that all was good, it wasn't until I went to try and open steam that I noticed it wouldn't open, as I did with my previous account, I went to reinstall steam, and found im having the same problems.

Tried again, to install steam

All im getting is the following

Steam Setup

Error opening file for writing

C:\Program Files (x86)\steam\steam.exe

Click retry to try again
Cancel to stop installation

Try turning off avast and see if it works?

That didn't work, ive done a system recovery, and it seems to be working, just means im gonna have to re-download everything...real pain!

Thanks for trying though pal, much appreciated

Yea I read somewhere it was about the system taking control, and making the security of the file stupidly locked down. That's as far as I got, every 'solution' was a fail.

The system refresh has worked...for how long? god knows

Alternatively, although much more evil, you could install the programs to a location that you'll definitely have write access, like your APPDATA folder (which you can easily get to by typing %APPDATA% in the address bar).

It's slightly evil, since that folder is for data, not programs, but it will stop all the annoyances (hell, even Google used that for Chrome because of how badly the permissions were done).

That's exactly what take ownership does, except you don't need "full control" to read or write. All you need is read/exectue, read, write, and modify. You don't need special permissions or full control, so using the script should work. If it doesn't, then it's Antivirus, User Account Control is turned on, or the user account you're using isn't an administrator, plain and simple.

Fair enough.

Indeed since vista, the program files folders have pretty annoying hardcoded permissions going on. While generally not problematic, sometimes something go wrong and the shit hit the fan xD.

I generally notice that problem after a windows update, and the best way to avoid the problem alltogether, is to go back to the old ways and not use the program files folders. Altho using directly the root of your hardrive also come with issues if you are not an admin user, which is why games installing directly to something like c:\companyname\gamename often have people with problems installing on their forum ! XD.


All those issues are why SS default install follow the path chrome traced, and install directly in appdata. Its one of the few folders that is guaranteed to be writable / readable by the user by default without having to use underhanded methods to gain the write access. Just about every other locations end up causing problem (other than dislike of the install location) to one user or another heh.