WinSCP Won't show C:\ Drives content

For some reason, just in the past couple days my WinSCP installation won't show any of my files/folders in the C:\ Drive of my computer. Every other Drive still works, and I'm stumped as to what to do to fix it

I tried updating after it happened and did, but that didn't change anything either. I recently installed InstantRails (A ruby on rails dev environment but I don't see how that'd affect this, nothing else has even changed with the computer)


I'm on Windows 7 and WinSCP 4.2.5 Build 624

Thanks in advance for any help at all.

What does it do instead? Does it hang? Or just displays empty pane?
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Martin Prikryl

Whenever I'm in any directory within the C Drive, it just shows nothing in the view area. Its not loading or freezing.

When I click on the darker blue area with the path I'm in currently and try to load anything from there that is int he C Drive I get this message:

"C:\ is not accessible
Access Denied"

so any solutions around this?

I encountered this problem with my drive d... you may try to right click then choose explore to view your drive c's contents

chelseaisa wrote:

so any solutions around this?

I encountered this problem with my drive d... you may try to right click then choose explore to view your drive c's contents

My drive itself is fine, WinSCP just wont acknowledge it. I can't browse through it in WinSCP because it won't let me.

I might have to switch to a different sftp client, but I really would rather not.

OS: Windows 7 Home Premium X64

To see a disk - me it is necessary to start WinSCP on behalf of the Administrator that involves weight of difficulties.

So does you account have an access to C:\? Or do you need to elevate your priviledges before?
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Martin Prikryl

Yes. My account have an access to C:\
I have only one HDD partition C:\ and the only one account. All other programmes such as Total Commander, Explorer, FireFox and so on can perfectly see and work with drive C:\

2 months ago I had 3 partitions C,D,E and everything worked fine. Maybe this information will be usefull.

OK, am I still talking to Rocket442? I'm going to send you a debug version.
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Martin Prikryl

OK, am I still talking to Rocket442? I'm going to send you a debug version.

No :) Guest is Sergey
my e-mail: sergei999{*}inbox.ru
I'd like to recieve improved version too :)

Any update to this. I'm experiencing the same problem.

Win 7 x64

I'm running Windows 7 and have the same problem as the OP. For some reason WinSCP can no longer browse the C drive without administrator privileges. I've also noticed that bsnes has the same issue. However, Microsoft Word and all other programs I've tested work fine.

I've noticed that the programs that can't read the contents of the C drive are those not using the standard "open file" dialog box (libraries pane on the left, etc).

selmoatse wrote:

I'm running Windows 7 and have the same problem as the OP. For some reason WinSCP can no longer browse the C drive without administrator privileges. I've also noticed that bsnes has the same issue. However, Microsoft Word and all other programs I've tested work fine.

I've noticed that the programs that can't read the contents of the C drive are those not using the standard "open file" dialog box (libraries pane on the left, etc).

I forgot to mention: when I click the button allowing me to browse for my public key file, an XP-style "open file" dialog box appears and can browse the C drive just fine. However it doesn't work in commander mode or after double clicking on the C drive.

selmoatse wrote:

I've noticed that the programs that can't read the contents of the C drive are those not using the standard "open file" dialog box (libraries pane on the left, etc).

Maybe the programs that do not work are 32 bit, while those that work are 64 bit?
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Martin Prikryl

I'm also experiencing this problem (win7). I even uninstalled and downgraded to 4.2.6 but the problem persists although it never happened before. I saw only one system update from Microsoft over the weekend and it was a virus definition update so I don't think it was that. I'm running 32bit if that helps. Thanks for the help.

Hinano wrote:

I'm also experiencing this problem (win7). I even uninstalled and downgraded to 4.2.6 but the problem persists although it never happened before. I saw only one system update from Microsoft over the weekend and it was a virus definition update so I don't think it was that. I'm running 32bit if that helps. Thanks for the help.

I have sent you a debug version.

same problem as described by Rocket442, I'm running Windows 7 64-Bit and WinSCP Version 4.2.7 (Build 758).
I just did a fresh install of W7 a few days ago, I was running WinSCP (an older version) on Vista 64 before without problems for years.

I am also having this issue on Windows 7 x64.
If I run the program as administrator, I do not get the access denied message.

(I even marked myself as owner of C:\, and I know I am owner of my users directory, and still it refuses to let me view any part of C:\)

I'm also having the same trouble. I'd love an update.

I'm having the same issues as described above. I too have Windows 7 64bit.

Could you send a debug or corrected version? I'm on windows7 w/ 64bit.

I am having the exact same issue on Win Vista x64. Is there a solution yet?

ForSpud wrote:

I am having the exact same issue on Win Vista x64. Is there a solution yet?

Can you send me an email, so I can send you back a debug version of WinSCP to track the problem? Please include link back to this topic in your email. Also note in this topic that you have sent the email. Thanks.


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Martin Prikryl

The same thing started happening to me today. The left pane for C:\ is blank, and hitting Browse in the Open Directory dialog gets me a Windows "C:\ is not accessible. Access is denied." error message, before opening the Windows directory browser dialog... wherein I'm unable to expand the C:\ branch, of course.

It's not limited to only WinSCP though - Komodo Edit (32-bit) is doing it too in any and all file dialogs.
However, a 32-bit Notepad (C:\Windows\SysWoW64\Notepad.exe) doesn't have this problem; I can browse C:\ as much as I want.

Just upgraded to latest version and having the same problem. Can access all these dirs fine through windows explorer.

I'm in Windows 7 (running 32-bit, tho i have a 64-bit CPU), and I can't even install WinSCP while trying to "Run as Admin". I thought maybe it was just a current version thing, but it I couldn't get ANY version of WinSCP to install, even while using administrative rights (only tried Versions 3+).

Current versions give me a language selector, and then immediately throw me an ambiguous "Access Is Denied" error. Older version let me choose a few more options before giving me similar denial messages.

Oh, and I've never encountered a problem like this with any other program, and I've been running Windows 7 for months.

arckex wrote:

I'm in Windows 7 (running 32-bit, tho i have a 64-bit CPU), and I can't even install WinSCP while trying to "Run as Admin". I thought maybe it was just a current version thing, but it I couldn't get ANY version of WinSCP to install, even while using administrative rights (only tried Versions 3+).

Current versions give me a language selector, and then immediately throw me an ambiguous "Access Is Denied" error. Older version let me choose a few more options before giving me similar denial messages.

After some further finagling, i was able to get WinSCP 3 to install to a directory located outside of "Program Files". (I made sure I used Admin rights for EVERYTHING i did). So, there must be some sort of failed permissions check happening here.

arckex wrote:

I'm in Windows 7 (running 32-bit, tho i have a 64-bit CPU), and I can't even install WinSCP while trying to "Run as Admin". I thought maybe it was just a current version thing, but it I couldn't get ANY version of WinSCP to install, even while using administrative rights (only tried Versions 3+).

Current versions give me a language selector, and then immediately throw me an ambiguous "Access Is Denied" error. Older version let me choose a few more options before giving me similar denial messages.

Can you send me an email, so I can send you back a debug version of WinSCP to track the problem? Please include link back to this topic in your email. Also note in this topic that you have sent the email. Thanks.


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Martin Prikryl

This may be caused by User Account Control (UAC) function.
If WinSCP works OK when used "run as admin" option and user is not required to enter credentials (login/password), then it means that the access was blocked by UAC feature connected with new access rights set for system drive. Windows 7 uses different initial access rights settings for system drive than previous Windows versions. This means that one has to have administrative rights to save files directly on system drive and those rights are by default stripped by UAC (and are "given back" when program is "run as admin").
I'm not sure why would it prevent reading root folder contents, but I suspect that UAC and ACL has something to do with it too (maybe WinSCP is trying to use more privileges than simple read/list).

I'll try to post Windows 7 system drive ACL settings when I'm at my Windows 7 box. Maybe that'll help to resolve the issue.

It looks like I was right about ACL. The root folder of system drive restricts some rights to non-administrative users. One can create new folders there and fully access subfolders, but creating and/or modifying files directly in the root folder is for admins only.
When I say admins only I also mean administrative users when UAC is active (application accessing the files was run normally - without privilege elevation).
This may be the cause of errors if WinSCP is trying to create files or access existing files in read-write mode, when navigated to root folder.

Hilarion wrote:

It looks like I was right about ACL. The root folder of system drive restricts some rights to non-administrative users. One can create new folders there and fully access subfolders, but creating and/or modifying files directly in the root folder is for admins only.
When I say admins only I also mean administrative users when UAC is active (application accessing the files was run normally - without privilege elevation).
This may be the cause of errors if WinSCP is trying to create files or access existing files in read-write mode, when navigated to root folder.

Thanks for your investigation. Though I still do not understand how this could block reading of directory content. Directory AFAIK cannot be opened in read/write mode (in other words, there's no write mode for directory).
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Martin Prikryl

This issue has been added to tracker.

Rocket442, did you try to reinstall it once more? I faced this issue on my windows 7 running.

I had the same problem, all you have to do is go to the Local tab, then click Go To, and then Open Directory/Bookmark and where the address says C:/Users/YourName/Desktop or whatever just delete it until it just says C:/ and you're all set :)

I went into the WinSCP options, and you can add WinSCP to the Explorer menu items, so that you can right click a file and do a SEND-TO WinSCP host as upload.

this worked for me, I was able to upload using this.

Shame about not being able to browse any longer... I was able to 3 months ago...

David