Setting file and folder permissions on Windows

Changing File and folder permissions

File and folder access permissions work differently in Windows to the way they work on Linux/Apache .

If you need to alter access permissions for any  files or folders in your site then you can do so from the Windows control panel(DotNetPanel) file manager.

From the file manager find and click the padlock next to a file or folder to open the permissions dialog window.

In this box you will have at least two users, one user is the web browsing user which is listed as the domain name of your site and the other user is the application user which is listed as "NETWORK SERVICE".

If you have more than one website within your hosting space you will see more than one domain browsing user, typically you would only alter the permissions for the user of the domain folder you are browsing in file manger.

As a rule the users offer the following options.

Domain User (browsing user) : Setting read or write permissions for this user will alter the access permissions for the browsing user and allow or disallow the user from reading or writing files on the site. Typically you would always want this user to have read access so they can browse files within your website.

Network Service (Application user) : Setting read or write permissions for this user will alter the access permissions for any application installed in your space, this means altering access for any server side code like php / asp / .net applications you install in your space. Typically this is commonly needed for giving write access to things like config files or upload folders by website applications.

FTP CHMOD do not work on Windows so please use the guide above to determine your exact access needs. Some examples below.

Requirement : Need to access the config file for writing by my forum software. 
Solution : Set the network service to have write permissions on the file.

Requirement : Need to restrict read and write access to a file by someone browsing the site. 
Solution : Disable read and write access from the domain user on the file.

Please be aware that by default all files within the wwwroot folder are domain user readable but not writable. Also permissions can propagate from a child folder so if your permission change is not having an effect then check first that the child folder is not overriding your settings.