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In a world where write access to a folder or directory is controlled by permission settings at the operating system level, a ready answer for when you get the above message in your log when creating a SAS data set would be to check your access. However, if you are working in Windows and your access seems fine, then SAS’ generation of an access error message seems all the more perplexing. However, unlike the more black and white world of UNIX and Linux, Windows has other ways to change access that could throw things off from the straight and narrow. One of them, it would appear, is to right click on the file listing pane in Windows Explorer and select "Customize this folder…" to change how it appears. The strange upshot of this that a perpetual read-only flag is set for the folder in question and that flag triggers SAS authorisation errors; it’s all very strange and unexpected when you find it and deleting the folder and creating a new one, of course saving anything that you want to retain, is the quickest and easiest solution. In fact, it begs the question as why Microsoft are re-appropriating a flag used for access purposes to be used to determine whether the HTML components of a folder display have been changed or not. This is very strange stuff and does not look like good software design at all. With all the other problems the Microsoft create for themselves, I am not holding my breath until it’s fixed either. There seem to other things like this waiting to catch you out when using Windows SAS and good place to start is with SAS’ own description of the problem that I have just shared.