Problem connecting my Google Nexus 4 to Windows 8.1

My Google Nexus 4 has been playing up lately: taking ages to connect to WiFi and burning up battery extra quickly. Time for another factory reset, I thought, so plugged it into my PC to backup my ebooks, music files and photographs only to discover that it no longer showed up in Windows Explorer.

It turns out that a recent Windows 8.1 update has prevented many Android users from connecting their devices.

I found the solution on this post on Stack Overflow: Windows 8.1 Device Manager now showing ACER Device rather than Android Device for Google Nexus 7.

As far as I recall, this is roughly what I did:

1. In Windows Device Manager click on View > Show hidden devices.
2. Locate the ACER Composite ADB Interface uninstall all instances of it.
3. Reboot PC.
4. Plug in Android phone.
5. Return to Device Manager and open ‘ACER Composite ADB Interface and select ‘Update Driver…‘.
6. Select ‘Browse my computer for driver software‘.
7. Select ‘Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer‘.
8. From the list select ‘MTP USB Device‘.
9. Click Next.
10. Unplug Android phone.
11. Reboot PC.
12. Plug in Android phone.
13. Windows 8.1 showed the phone in Windows Explorer.

Nexus 4 listed as a device in Windows Explorer.

For some reason I had to do this twice. It may have been because I had ‘USB Debugging’ activated in Settings > Developer Options, and I unticked it the second time.

Anyway, I can now connect my Nexus 4 to my PC. Panic over.

http://blog.garethjmsaunders.co.uk/2014/08/23/problem-connecting-my-google-nexus-4-to-windows-8-1/

grant administrators and change access to files and folders

 icacls "e:\program files" /grant administrators:F /t

 icacls "e:\program files" /grant {USERNAME}:{PERMISSION} /t

icacls <FileName> [/grant[:r] <Sid>:<Perm>[...]] [/deny <Sid>:<Perm>[...]] [/remove[:g|:d]] <Sid>[...]] [/t] [/c] [/l] [/q] [/setintegritylevel <Level>:<Policy>[...]]
icacls <Directory> [/substitute <SidOld> <SidNew> [...]] [/restore <ACLfile> [/c] [/l] [/q]]

____________________________________________________________________

Windows comes with a special command line utility called CACLS.

You can use it as follows:
CACLS files /e /p {USERNAME}:{PERMISSION}

Where,

• /p : Set new permission
• /e : Edit permission and kept old permission as it is i.e. edit ACL instead of replacing it.
• {USERNAME} : Name of user
• {PERMISSION} : Permission can be:
• R - Read
• W - Write
• C - Change (write)
• F - Full control

For example grant Rocky Full (F) control with following command (type at Windows command prompt):

C:> CACLS files /e /p rocky:f

Read complete help by typing following command:

C:> cacls /?

http://www.vistax64.com/vista-security/112670-changing-folder-permissions-recursively.html

http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/windows-change-access-permissions-from-the-command-line.html

Take Ownership of a Folder and Sub-Folders In Command Prompt

http://www.nextofwindows.com/how-to-silently-recursively-take-ownership-of-a-folder-and-sub-folders-in-command-prompt/

How To Silently Recursively Take Ownership of a Folder and Sub-Folders In Command Prompt

One of the first few things you might encounter after upgrading your existing Windows to Windows 8.1 is the file and folder/directory permission problem. If you have multiple disk drive, as well as multiple users or a new user for the new Windows 8.1, then you might have some of the folders become inaccessible due to the lake of permission after the system was upgraded to Windows 8.1.

You might get a warning message like the following “You don’t currently have permission to access this folder.” Click Continue to permanently get access to this folder.

You don’t currently have permission to access this folder

You have the choice to click “Continue”. In most case, this will fix the issue of not being able to get access to the folder. But sometimes, you might still run into issues where all the child folders have the same problem, unable to access this folder because of the lack of permission. In this case, you can manually click “Continue” for every single child directory or use a command line utility called “takeown” to achieve this.

takeown /a /r /d Y /f D:\PATH\

Launch command prompt as administrator. You can do so in Windows 8.1, by right click on the Start Menu > Command Prompt (Admin) and type the following command. Let me explain what this command is doing, /a is telling the computer to grant ownership to the administrator/r recursively find all folders and sub-folders and files. /d Y is to answer yes to any prompt if needed, /f specific root folder you’d like to start on.

By doing so you will see messages fly by on each success permission update, “SUCCESS: The file (or folder): “…” now owned by the administrator group. You are now successfully silently updated file permission to the new system.

Mission of taking folder ownership succeeded

If you don’t want to grant the permission to administrator group, just drop /a in the command and it will grant permission to the current user. This will save you tons time on file permission headaches when upgrade your system to a new OS, particularly after Windows 8.1 upgrade.

http://www.nextofwindows.com/how-to-silently-recursively-take-ownership-of-a-folder-and-sub-folders-in-command-prompt/

How to Convert PDF Files for Easy Ebook Reading

You will need this very nice tool:
http://www.willus.com/k2pdfopt/download/

Windows 8.1 64-bit 100% disk usage

Go to charms bar and press search, then type view local services.

Once here, stop and disable BITS (Background Intelligent Transfer Service). Also, set windows update checks to manual.

Chrome also seemed to be a factor so uninstall that too.