“You don’t currently have permission to access this folder” error on Windows

When Windows shows the message «You don’t currently have permission to access this folder», you need to take ownership of the folder or drive. Follow these steps.

From the Properties dialog

1. Right click the folder, then click Properties.
2. Open the Security tab, click Advanced, then click Change next to the owner.
3. Type the name of the user you want to give ownership to and click Check Names. In this case I used the Administrator account of my new machine; you can also choose «Everyone» and set full control, it depends on your needs.
4. Click OK.
5. Select the Replace owner on subcontainers and objects check box.
6. Click OK.

From the command line

A faster way is to run the following commands from an elevated prompt:

takeown /f <folder> /r /d y
icacls <folder> /grant administrators:F /T

The first command takes ownership of the folder and everything inside it, the second grants full control to the Administrators group.

For more information see Microsoft KB2623670.