‘Access Denied’ error message on startup of MediaMonkey

In some rare cases (sometimes following a MediaMonkey update), Windows may not correctly validate MediaMonkey as a trusted application, causing it to stop working (it may crash or result in ‘Access Denied’ errors). This occurs because Windows User Access Controls (UAC) have moved MediaMonkey to a virtualized environment, from which it will fail to operate correctly because files and configuration settings aren’t in their expected locations.

The virtual directory is created at:
C:\Users\*current logged in Windows user*\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\ where it stores all application changes to protected storage folders like “Program Files”, “ProgData” and others.

To prevent Windows from placing files in the Virtual Directory you should perform these steps:

  1. Log in as a local administrator on the computer
  2. Go to the new Virtual Directory application folder that Windows created (i.e. …\MediaMonkey\), then right click > Properties > Security Tab > Edit and if the Local Computer (Users) account is not listed, then add it and set the permissions to Full Control and save all the way out of the properties.
  3. Manually copy all of the saved documents or files from the Virtual Directory to the proper location and then rename the folder in the Virtual Directory by adding something like ‘_old’ to it.
  4. From the Windows Start menu, do a search for Local Security Policy and select it.
  5. Expand Local Policies and click on Security Options. On the right pane, scroll all the way to the bottom and you will find a setting called “User Account Control: Virtualize file and registry write failures to per-user locations”, double-click on that setting and change it to Disabled.

Applies to: ,

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