windows 7 - How to (re)enable the "New" context menu items for an administrator when right-clicking in a folder and selecting New > X?

I just migrated from XP x86 to Win7 x64 (clean install). I had a couple of data drives in my XP x86 system that I physically moved to my Win7 x64 system.

When browsing a directory in any of the transferred drives, the only option available in the 'new' context menu is "Folder", i.e., Right-Click inside a folder > New > Folder (this is similar behavior for Win7 when using the context menu in c:\Program Files):

However, whenever creating a new folder within any of the directories, all the context menu new items are available within the new folder:

Steps I've taken that have failed to add the new context menu items:

• Removing all security permissions from a directory and sub-directories. Replacing them with new permissions. As well as removing inheritable permissions from the parent.


• Taking explicit ownership of a directory and sub-directories.


• Combing the above two.

Sample of Effective Permissions that do not work:

Steps I've taken that have succeeded to add the new context menu items:

• Adding the "Everyone" group to the drive and giving the group explicit "Modify" privileges.
  
  
  
  • Giving the "Everyone" group explicit privileges smells wrong. I'm an administrator on my system; why should I have to add the "Everyone" group as well?
  
  
  
  


• Adding my username to the drive and giving full permissions.
  
  
  
  • Again, since I'm an administrator on my system and the administrators group already has full control of the drive/directories/folders, why should I have to explicitly add my user name to the security permissions?
  
  
  
  

Finally, The Question:

Is it possible to have the New Item context menu have all available options by default without having to explicitly add the everyone group or a specific user name to the security permissions?

I'm suspecting that the option may not be available unless the username is explicitly added to the security permissions.

Of note: I've seen the registry hacks for updating the new items context menu; my preference is to avoid such hacks and return the functionality to the expected behavior an administrator should have.

Answer

OK, I've finally figured out what the issue is with Win7. Apparently, when you migrate a drive to a Win7 (or Vista) system, an administrator does not have full privileges as described in my question.

Here's what needs to be done:

1. Change ownership of the drive to yourself (or the administrators group) and then apply the ownership changes to sub-containers and objects.


2. Change permissions of the drive with the following permissions (delete all others if you want):
   
   
   
   • Administrators: Full Control
   
   
   • System: Full Control
   
   
   • Users: Read & Execute
   
   
   • Authenticated Users: Modify <---- This is the key group!
   
   
   
   

Even if you are an admin and own the drive, you will not be able to add a "new item" to an existing folder via the context menu until the group "Authenticated Users" has been added to the drive permissions.

The other alternative is to provide your user account Full Control to the drive, however, using the Authenticate Users group is likely to be a better practice in the long run.