Article ID: 172333 - Last Review: February 23, 2007 - Revision: 2.2

Explorer Cannot Rename New Folders Or Directories

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SYMPTOMS

When you use Windows NT Explorer to create and rename a new folder or document while logged in with an account that only has Read, Write, and Execute (RWX) permissions, you will get the following error:

Cannot rename <name>: Access is Denied

Make sure the disk is not full or write-protected and that the file is not currently in use.

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CAUSE

When creating a new document or folder, Windows NT Explorer first creates the object using the default name. To rename that object, Windows NT Explorer needs to delete the old object to create the new object.

This also applies to renaming an object that has already been created.

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RESOLUTION

There are at least two methods to resolve this problem:

Add the creator owner user with delete permission to that directory, which will give the user the right to delete his or her own creations.
Run WINFILE, which will give no default name when creating a file.

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STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in Windows NT version 4.0. We are researching this problem and will post new information here in the Microsoft Knowledge Base as it becomes available.

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