OS: Windows 7 Home 64bit
I cannot save a large file to the root of the C drive. I am not trying to save into any folder or directory, just directly to the root.
I am using the administrator account on my home computer, and when I try saving this large file to the root of the C drive, I receive the error message:
A required privilege is not held by the client.
Best Answer
Since Windows XP, the root directory of the system partition cannot be written to without administrator privileges. However, for security reasons, Windows Vista and Windows 7 do not grant administrator permissions by default even if logged on as an administrator unless explicitly elevated to this privilege level, which may require that you click through a UAC prompt. This is because a piece of malicious software can cause much more damage if it runs with administrator permissions than if it runs with limited user permissions.
As a result, even if you are logged in as an administrator, your program cannot write to the root directory of the C: drive as it is not given administrator permissions. To solve this problem, run the program as an administrator by right-clicking on the icon of the program and select Run as adminstrator. Note that this may require that you click through a UAC prompt. Furthermore, this can reduce your security, so do this only if this is truly necessary for a particular application.