Forum Discussion
Copy & paste permission error after Win11 23H2
I have a file share that has very specific permissions due to regulations. Users are only allowed to read and write files, but they are not allowed to delete or modify the files in any way once they are created, see picture below. Note that users do not have "Write attributes" or "Write extended attributes". Users get their permissions through nested security groups. This has been working well for several years when users had Win10 and the Win11 OS. But after users upgraded to Win11 23H2 they are getting an error when they are copy & pasting files from their workstation "you need permissions to perform this action".
Same user on a Win10 or Win11 22H2 workstations can perform the same copy & paste action.
If I add the "Write attributes" or "Write extended attributes" permission to their security group they can copy & paste files to the share from a Win11 23H2 or 24H2 workstation.
I know that the file explorer in Win11 23H2 got a new code base and many new features.
Has anybody seen this behavior or can they replicate this problem?
6 Replies
Harjit_Dhaliwal Christiaan_Brinkhoff Who broke File Explorer in Win11 23H2?
This is a major bug, many heavy regulated industrides like Pharmaceutical manufacturing depend on this "write once". It's critical that users cannot modify the files or it's metadata/attributes in any way once the file has been written.
We have almost the same situation of having a file share be 'write once' due to to regulations and experiencing the same issue. I also had to enable "Create folders / append data to get it to work. This obvisouly isn't a good long term solution.
vihargadhesariya Do you have any Microsoft reference to this?
I cannot find this setting "new copy UI" in GPO , I have the latest Win 11 GPO templates.
When copying files into a directory, Windows needs certain permissions to create and finalize the operation. Even if users have "Read" and "Write" permissions, the system might now require explicit "Write attributes" or "Write extended attributes" permissions to complete the process without errors.
- Explorer in 23H2 invokes SetFileInformation to write file attributes on copy → fails without Write attributes/extended attributes
- Confirm with ProcMon: look for ACCESS_DENIED on FileBasicInfo calls
- Fix: grant those two permissions on the share’s ACL
- Or disable the new copy UI via GPO:
Computer Config → Admin Templates → Windows Components → File Explorer → Turn off enhanced copy/move dialogs → Enabled- Or use Robocopy in backup mode to bypass metadata writes:
robocopy \\share\path C:\dest /B /COPY:DTI have the same issue and can replicate, also due to regulations we have the folder set to 'write once'. I had to also enable the "Create Folder / Append Data" to get it to work. This wouldn't be an acceptable solution as the users could then modify files. It would seem file copies are now creating files then writing data in separate operations, even basic txt files. It only works when copying in an empty file.
