1. Start elevated Powershell (Win+X,A) and create file C:\foo.txt owned by the Administrators group PS C:\> $null > C:\foo.txt PS C:\> takeown /A /F C:\foo.txt SUCCESS: The file (or folder): "C:\foo.txt" now owned by the administrators group. 2. Open `emacs -Q` 3. C-x C-f C:/foo.txt 4. Type `(file-writable-p "foo.txt")` C-x C-e t 5. C-x C-s Saving file c:/foo.txt... Cannot write backup file; backing up in ~/.emacs.d/%backup%~ Error: (file-error "Setting ACL" "Operation not permitted" "c:/Users/mhoffman/.emacs.d/%backup%~") basic-save-buffer-2: Opening output file: Permission denied, c:/foo.txt Expected that `(file-writable-p "foo.txt")` would return nil. In GNU Emacs 26.3 (build 1, x86_64-w64-mingw32) of 2019-08-29 built on CIRROCUMULUS Repository revision: 96dd0196c28bc36779584e47fffcca433c9309cd Windowing system distributor 'Microsoft Corp.', version 10.0.18363 Recent messages: For information about GNU Emacs and the GNU system, type C-h C-a. Mark activated Configured using: 'configure --without-dbus --host=x86_64-w64-mingw32 --without-compress-install 'CFLAGS=-O2 -static -g3'' Configured features: XPM JPEG TIFF GIF PNG RSVG SOUND NOTIFY ACL GNUTLS LIBXML2 ZLIB TOOLKIT_SCROLL_BARS THREADS LCMS2 Important settings: value of $LANG: ENU locale-coding-system: cp1252 Major mode: Lisp Interaction Minor modes in effect: tooltip-mode: t global-eldoc-mode: t eldoc-mode: t electric-indent-mode: t mouse-wheel-mode: t tool-bar-mode: t menu-bar-mode: t file-name-shadow-mode: t global-font-lock-mode: t font-lock-mode: t blink-cursor-mode: t auto-composition-mode: t auto-encryption-mode: t auto-compression-mode: t line-number-mode: t transient-mark-mode: t Load-path shadows: None found. Features: (shadow sort mail-extr emacsbug message rmc puny seq byte-opt gv bytecomp byte-compile cconv cl-loaddefs cl-lib dired dired-loaddefs format-spec rfc822 mml easymenu mml-sec password-cache epa derived epg epg-config gnus-util rmail rmail-loaddefs mm-decode mm-bodies mm-encode mail-parse rfc2231 mailabbrev gmm-utils mailheader sendmail rfc2047 rfc2045 ietf-drums mm-util mail-prsvr mail-utils elec-pair time-date mule-util tooltip eldoc electric uniquify ediff-hook vc-hooks lisp-float-type mwheel dos-w32 ls-lisp disp-table term/w32-win w32-win w32-vars term/common-win tool-bar dnd fontset image regexp-opt fringe tabulated-list replace newcomment text-mode elisp-mode lisp-mode prog-mode register page menu-bar rfn-eshadow isearch timer select scroll-bar mouse jit-lock font-lock syntax facemenu font-core term/tty-colors frame cl-generic cham georgian utf-8-lang misc-lang vietnamese tibetan thai tai-viet lao korean japanese eucjp-ms cp51932 hebrew greek romanian slovak czech european ethiopic indian cyrillic chinese composite charscript charprop case-table epa-hook jka-cmpr-hook help simple abbrev obarray minibuffer cl-preloaded nadvice loaddefs button faces cus-face macroexp files text-properties overlay sha1 md5 base64 format env code-pages mule custom widget hashtable-print-readable backquote threads w32notify w32 lcms2 multi-tty make-network-process emacs) Memory information: ((conses 16 97495 11932) (symbols 48 20211 1) (miscs 40 42 143) (strings 32 29766 1358) (string-bytes 1 773975) (vectors 16 13889) (vector-slots 8 494823 7634) (floats 8 51 193) (intervals 56 251 11) (buffers 992 11))