Platforms Affected: Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000

Issue: Certain Discus functions return an error message indicating a condition of "Permission denied" (some examples are: File Locking Error, Could not write main topics file, and conditions within Program Diagnostics). However, the FTP program shows that permissions on affected files and/or directories have been set to rwxrwxrwx as instructed.

Resolution: Windows permissions do not work the same as unix permissions, and there is no such thing on a Windows server as permissions 0777 (rwxrwxrwx). Rather, Windows permissions are allocated to groups of users, and assigned by names such as "Read," "Write," "Change," and "Full Control."

Many Windows FTP servers, in order to make their operation compatible with a greater number of FTP clients, present output in a unix-style format, including indicating permissions on files and giving a user and group of ownership. In these cases, the FTP server is simply making up, out of thin air, these permissions and user/group ownership. These outputs from the server should not be trusted in any way, and do not indicate permissions on files.

The only standard method by which Windows permissions can be set is to log in at the console, select files and/or directories, and set permissions through Windows Explorer (see this document for details). WINDOWS PERMISSIONS CANNOT BE SET USING AN FTP PROGRAM.

If you get a "Permission denied" condition with Discus, you need to contact your web host and have them set permissions on your Discus admininstration directory and Discus "messages" directory. Please see our Windows permissions tips for details. "Permission denied" ALWAYS occurs as a problem with permissions on the server, and is NEVER a malfunction in Discus, or anything that DiscusWare can help you with. Users of DiscusWare products on Windows servers of any kind should contact their web hosts for further details on Windows permissions.

This issue does not affect unix servers. Unix servers do allow the end-user to set permissions directly through the FTP program, without having to rely on contacting the web host whenever permissions are to be set.