220-1102 Question 629
Single answerInability to access filesA technician is troubleshooting a Windows 11 workstation for a user who can browse to a shared department folder on a file server but receives an "Access is denied" message when trying to open or modify one specific file. Other users in the same department can open the file successfully, and the user can open other files in the same shared folder. Which of the following is the MOST likely cause?
- A
The user does not have the correct NTFS permissions on that specific file
- B
The workstation's IP configuration is incorrect
- C
The file server's share permissions are preventing access to the entire folder
- D
The file is encrypted with EFS under another user's account
Show answer and explanation
Correct answer: D
Explanation
The best answer is that the file is encrypted with EFS under another user's account. In Windows, share permissions and NTFS permissions commonly affect access to folders and files, but when access problems are limited to a single file while other files in the same folder remain accessible, technicians should also consider file-level encryption. EFS is designed to encrypt files on NTFS volumes and tie access to user certificates. Microsoft documentation on EFS explains that encrypted files can only be opened by the user who encrypted them, designated recovery agents, or users explicitly granted access to the encrypted file. From a troubleshooting perspective, this is a practical distinction: connectivity issues affect server access broadly, share permission issues affect the share level, and EFS can affect an individual file even when the surrounding folder is otherwise accessible.
- A. Incorrect.
Incorrect. If the problem were standard NTFS permissions on the file, that would be a possible cause, but in this scenario the key detail is that the user can access the shared folder and other files within it while only one specific file is inaccessible. In many real environments, a single file becoming inaccessible to everyone except the original encrypting user is more specifically associated with EFS encryption rather than ordinary NTFS permission inheritance. A candidate might choose this because NTFS permissions commonly cause access issues, but the scenario points to a file-level protection issue beyond basic folder permissions.
- B. Incorrect.
Incorrect. An IP configuration problem would more likely affect access to the network share itself, name resolution, or overall connectivity to the file server. Because the user can browse to the shared folder and access other files on the same server, the network connection is functioning sufficiently for file access. This distractor reflects a common troubleshooting mistake: focusing on connectivity when the issue is clearly limited to one file.
- C. Incorrect.
Incorrect. Share permissions apply at the share level, not typically to just one file inside the shared folder. If share permissions were the issue, the user would generally be unable to access the folder or multiple files through that share. Since the user can access the share and other files in it, the problem is unlikely to be the share permission configuration. This option is plausible because technicians often check share permissions first when they see "Access is denied" on a network file.
- D. Correct.
Correct. Encrypting File System (EFS) can protect an individual file so that only the user account that encrypted it, or an authorized recovery agent, can open it. This fits the scenario because the user can access the shared folder and other files but not this one specific file. EFS is a file-level security feature in Windows, and when a file is encrypted under another user's account, other users may see the file but receive an access error when trying to open it.