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My work laptop was just upgraded from XP to Windows 7. While I used t be the Admin of my old machine, I only have "Elevated Rights" on the Win 7 one. as a result, I canot use Windows Explorer to copy files to certain folder, for example, the C:\program Files location. Surprisingly however, it is a well known fact among my colleaugues who also have Elevated Rights that we can write DOS batch files to copy the files to the same locations that Windows Explorer will not allow us to copy to. Note too, that this is true even when "explorer.exe" is started by clicking the "run Elevated" context menu to launch the program.

The fact that I can circumvent the limitation by copying files in a DOS file is surprising to me. I would have thought that the method attempted to copy the files should be irrelevant, that should either have the rights to do the copy or not.

I am looking to understand this apparent inconsistency in behavior and was wondering if this suggested that there might be a Windows Explorer substitute that might work in place of Windows Explorer. Using a GUI would be less tedious and error prone for me.

Can anyone explain why this inconsistent behavior may be happening and what Explorer replacement/supplement might allow me to copy freely?

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  • I have no problems copying and pasting files into that directory using windows explorer. I just provided it the Administrator account information or in my case just allow it. My guess this command prompt your using was already elevated no way a non-elevated command prompt would allow what you describe
    – Ramhound
    Nov 7, 2013 at 22:36
  • I cannot provide the Admin password because I am not intentionally provided such info.
    – Ivan
    Nov 7, 2013 at 22:48
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    Describe what the elevated privileges are exactly a normal User should be able to copy a file into the folder in question sounds like your domain setup has been configured to prevent this
    – Ramhound
    Nov 7, 2013 at 23:02
  • Policy certainly is preventing me from performing the copy but I am puzzled why it's only smart enough to stop me from using Windows Explorer. I am trying to figure out if I should try installing other Windows Explorer alternatives to see if they are also exempt but I am trying to avoid unnecessary installs.Strange again, I only have rights to install, not to uninstall. I cannot tell you what "Elevated Rights" comprises of because I dont know where it is defined and I seriously doubt that I have visibility to this sort of configuration/
    – Ivan
    Nov 8, 2013 at 3:19
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    I would argue your ability to replace Windows Explorer is a bigger concern then your ability to transfer files into a protected folder.
    – Ramhound
    Nov 10, 2013 at 3:03

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