uTorrent Error: Access is Denied Windows 7

Martin Brinkmann
Oct 27, 2009
Updated • Apr 22, 2013
File Sharing, Tutorials
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64

I switched to Windows 7 earlier today and have started to install most of the computer programs that I work regularly with. One of the programs is the Bittorrent client uTorrent which caused a strange problem that I never encountered before. After configuring the new port forwarding rules it would start downloading and seeding the data as usual but would display the error message "Error: Access is Denied" for every torrent that was still downloading parts of the file (those torrents were carried over from my old system).

My initial though was that it was either a rights-issue or a read-only flag that was preventing the writing of the data to the hard drive. Both assumptions did not turn out to be true however.

It seems that uTorrent is having compatibility issues with Windows 7. The easiest way to fix those is to run uTorrent in compatibility mode. This can be done by right-clicking the uTorrent.exe file and selecting Properties from the menu. This opens the file properties with a compatibility tab at the top.

Checking the "Run this program in compatibility mode for" will make the application run in the selected compatibility mode. I have selected Windows XP (Service Pack 3) which is working fine. Others might be working as well but this has not been tested.

A click on Apply and Ok will close the window. The program will be launched from then on in Windows XP SP3 compatibility mode which gets rid of the error message for now.

As some readers have pointed out, this may be a rights-issue after all. First thing that you may want to try is run uTorrent with elevated rights by right-clicking it and selecting run as administrator from the context menu. If that does not work, create a new download folder on the drive you store the downloads and a new temporary folder for the partial downloads. Move all the files in to those folders and see if it resolves the issue.

The last option is to change the access rights of the download and cache folder so that your user account has full access rights to those folders.

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Comments

  1. Freonpsandoz said on August 6, 2016 at 11:16 pm
    Reply

    I have a number of folders that uTorrent cannot access. Taking ownership and giving full control to authenticated users didn’t fix it. Copying the folders to another drive, deleting the originals, and copying them back didn’t fix it. Don’t know what to do next.

  2. Mayank said on June 20, 2016 at 8:24 pm
    Reply

    Thnaks it worked

  3. yeaaaaaaa said on February 22, 2013 at 11:30 am
    Reply

    Hey thank you!!1 work great for me :)))

  4. Romes said on October 20, 2012 at 4:25 pm
    Reply

    Hey thanks much for the help!

  5. Icy Wind said on September 28, 2012 at 2:13 am
    Reply

    Thank you for this tidbit of information. I have been having trouble with uTorrent for a while now, trying to get some stuff on my computer, but it all had that problem: WriteToDisk: Access is Denied. This fixed it, though. Thank you.

  6. mir_sajjad said on September 27, 2012 at 7:34 am
    Reply

    ***Great!!!Thanks for the HELP***

  7. James said on September 19, 2012 at 10:03 pm
    Reply

    You sir, are amazing. THANK-YOU~

  8. Zedd said on August 24, 2012 at 10:21 pm
    Reply

    None of these worked for me. I have win7 ultimate.
    What worked is uninstall utor and reinstall utor on a non system drive, i.e. d,e: etc.

  9. HiddenKnowledge said on May 2, 2012 at 2:19 pm
    Reply

    You get this error because your downloadlocation has been set to a location other than your User directory (Most likely another users home directory).

    This means Utorrent can’t write any files to this directory. If you change your downloaddirectory to something like, *your* Downloads folder, it will work perfectly, though. :)

  10. Fordo said on December 11, 2011 at 7:36 pm
    Reply

    Thanks Martin…you nailed it.

  11. Bob XP said on August 8, 2011 at 10:18 am
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    Just change the location of the folder you are downloading to. The folder you are currently using is probably being used by another program and is denying access for files to be written on it.

  12. tigara electronica said on June 29, 2011 at 11:33 pm
    Reply

    i allready solved this problem using another method. I was keep trying giving permission on the hard drive but the same message was butherring me. So this is what you have to do:
    Go not on the harddrive but on the folder that is used as a master folder for downloading torrents, and givi him permission to the “everyone” user to have full acces and giving him all the permisions.
    Is just too easy.
    Have a beautyfull ratio.

  13. Nizzy said on June 25, 2011 at 9:59 pm
    Reply

    i have windows 7 starter ultimate , i completed a couple downloads from uTorrent but out of nowhere all i get now is “””torrent error “””” = ” access denied”

  14. cubes said on May 6, 2011 at 10:39 pm
    Reply

    well im having the same bloody problem

    i encountered it first on my previous version of bit torrent software
    i downloaded the latest version and the problem was solved ‘ until now

    what the hell could i possibly do now !

  15. Rumshot said on April 19, 2011 at 1:09 am
    Reply

    Tnx fixed it for me, i didnt have a problem with it before, but installed a new copy of win 7 and got this problem. info here fixes it tho =)

  16. RSB said on January 15, 2011 at 4:57 am
    Reply

    All you have to do is to right click on your executable, select properties, next compatibility and check “Run as administrator” at Windows 7/Vista. Good Luck !

  17. Batman said on January 1, 2011 at 7:30 am
    Reply

    works when you reboot….thx

  18. Batman said on January 1, 2011 at 6:01 am
    Reply

    tried changing compatability and same problem…any suggestions

  19. Natman said on January 1, 2011 at 6:00 am
    Reply

    I changed it and it seems to work for 5 minutes and the error comes back….Used compatability to Win XP SP 3…..any suggestions…never had this issue in XP but in Windows 7…

  20. Daniel said on December 13, 2010 at 10:35 am
    Reply

    Thanks a lot Martin, this fixed my problem with “Access is denied” message. GJ. Cheers

  21. v said on December 9, 2010 at 9:50 am
    Reply

    you, are a genius!

  22. vishnu said on November 30, 2010 at 8:58 pm
    Reply

    i still hav the same prob after following the steps u hav mentioned

  23. alifax18 said on November 7, 2010 at 3:58 am
    Reply

    i had the same problem with utorent and i resoved Make a folder named Downloads or any thing and there download al kind of torrent when u choose the location in u torrend make like this D:\Downloads\…for me its working now

  24. Geoff said on October 27, 2010 at 11:40 pm
    Reply

    The utorrent I’m trying to connect to is “disabled“. How do I enable and change the connection settings so that utorrent can start to search for programs and download?? Is there an enable icon saying “enable” someplace in the properties or specifications?? Is this why it doesn’t work?? After I had a viral infection removed I had to un-install utorrent and re-install utorrent and re-download again. But since then the problem is how to enable utorrent??

  25. cyberninja said on October 26, 2010 at 3:34 am
    Reply

    Thank you soooo much!!! I’ve been pulling my hair out over this problem for nearly a week, and was about to go crazy. You made my day!!!

  26. Tsahi said on July 12, 2010 at 4:47 pm
    Reply

    Genius, thanks

  27. Jim said on June 1, 2010 at 11:51 pm
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    I had the same problem a minute ago, and then I ran uTorrent as an Administrator and it’s working fine now.

  28. Stefan said on June 1, 2010 at 12:25 am
    Reply

    Hello,

    i am from germany

    found your website with google

    and like to say thank you

    had same problem

    3 torrent running

    1 not

    your solutions works.

    thanks again

  29. Muhammad Aslam said on March 28, 2010 at 8:36 am
    Reply

    Good News guys! i got the reason why ” access is denied” by u torrent …its not due to ISP neither due to any firewall program ….its is only due to your destination folder hacked…
    Reason::..the folder wher you usually place torrent downloads…that folder is shared automatically by unknow user ….and it does not let you write this ..
    Solution:…try to download files using different drives or folder…it should work if it is the case….copy all the data from the folder which is hacked and then delete that folder…conclusion is ” download in a new folder and see …it should work….

  30. Anonymous said on March 5, 2010 at 1:15 am
    Reply

    Still won’t work with mine, Once I get anything at 1.2%, It stops.

  31. robert said on March 3, 2010 at 3:57 pm
    Reply

    Hey Guys,

    I switched to Windows 7 a few weeks ago and I got this issue this morning. I thought it was something I had done with network sharing. lol.

    This fix worked instantly for me. Don’t know why it suddenly happened. I hadn’t even shut off the PC in the intermitent time.

    Thanks a million,

  32. Paul said on March 2, 2010 at 3:36 am
    Reply

    hey guys,

    I just updated my Windows 7 from RC to the full copy and experienced the same problem with utorrent.

    Changed to XP compatible and it works fine now…..wierd!

  33. william said on January 10, 2010 at 12:45 am
    Reply

    i’ve been having this issue too. i’ll go away from the computer, come back, and my computer is in sleep mode. when i wake it up, it says it has recoverd from an error, blah blah blah, and when i go to start my torrents back up, i’ve gotten this error. hope your fix works.

  34. Toxicaligator said on January 8, 2010 at 8:25 am
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    I’ve had this problem with windows 7 Ultimate it seems its an issue with the ultimate edition there is some stupid addition to it that’s screwing things up a bit

  35. Kimmy said on January 3, 2010 at 9:14 pm
    Reply

    Thanks! I changed compatibility, and it works great. But I love Windows 7, so stop dis’ing. Vista was great too. But Windows 7 makes me a better pirate

  36. :) said on January 3, 2010 at 2:59 pm
    Reply

    Thanks. solved my problem.

  37. lynn said on December 7, 2009 at 1:49 am
    Reply

    hiya

    am having some proms regarding windows 7 and utorrent – i keep getting the msg Error: The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another priocess – i can download fron some sites and not others – some say that the DHT and Local Peer Discovery and Peer Exchange are not allowed whereas some others are fine – any suggestions plz

  38. oldfreeze said on November 28, 2009 at 9:17 pm
    Reply

    All hail the man! Dude, you just solved my problem.

  39. Great Sogeking said on November 21, 2009 at 5:56 pm
    Reply

    Run uTorrent as Administrator. Do this by right clicking uTorrent icon and click on “run as Administrator” in the dialogue box. Voila!

    1. Peter said on April 18, 2015 at 8:08 pm
      Reply

      thanks, running utorrent as admin solved the issue

  40. Punjabi said on November 21, 2009 at 8:42 am
    Reply

    y didnt i think of this!!! Thanks a lot!!!

  41. Ben said on November 17, 2009 at 11:16 pm
    Reply

    Here!

  42. Vic said on November 16, 2009 at 1:40 pm
    Reply

    This fixed my issue. I’ve actually had another issue where any attempt to open a .torrent file would result in an error message saying that uTorrent was already running and it couldn’t open it.

    Amazing how OS emulation solved this issue.

    Cheers mate.

  43. jingleballs said on November 13, 2009 at 6:08 am
    Reply

    thanks poster, you did it, im so proud

  44. Sleepy said on November 11, 2009 at 2:44 am
    Reply

    Thanks for this seems to have fixed my problem. I had been using uTorrent for a couple weeks now on Windows 7 Professional then all of a sudden I started getting this error. I have been downloading some other proggies and thought to run them in compatibility mode but didnt think to do that since it was working all this time. Thanks again!

  45. JaCKaL said on November 11, 2009 at 1:03 am
    Reply

    Yeah!! Thanks Mate!! This error was driving me crazy.

  46. Djole said on November 3, 2009 at 1:48 pm
    Reply

    I have been using uTorrent since the Beta version of Windows7 ant it worked just fine. Yesterday I installed Windows 7 Professional (clean and legit… for 30 days), and I got the access denied error in uTorrent. The thing is, you have to set permissions on all folders of the other partitions (full access). That does the trick. For example, if your downloading folder is E:Downloads, you have to go to that folder, right-click it, go to Properties, select Security tab, select Everyone and hit the Edit button. There you just tap The Full Control and OK.
    P.S. excuse my english, I’m not a native speaker

    1. Anonymous said on March 23, 2010 at 6:36 am
      Reply

      I also recently upgraded from Windows Vista Ultimate to Windows 7 Professional and got this ‘access denied’ problem. Instead of using the workaround posed by this article, the way to actually fix it is to correct permissions as someone else has already mentioned. To set up permissions:

      right click on a drive where you are currently downloading to (i.e., D:, E:) that is NOT your system drive (usually C:)
      click ‘properties’
      click the ‘security’ tab
      click ‘advanced’
      click ‘change permissions’
      select your name (or whatever account you run utorrent)
      check the box that says ‘Replace all child object permissions with inheritable permissions from this object’
      click ‘apply’

      Do this for every non-system drive that you download to.

  47. XMarksTheSpot said on October 28, 2009 at 2:22 pm
    Reply

    Maybe is just you. I also have it runing normaly in Windows 7 x64

  48. whizkid said on October 28, 2009 at 6:52 am
    Reply

    Strange, i’ve been running utorrent on Windows 7 beta, RC & now on the final release. Never had this problem. Don’t this it’s an issue with 7. It’s something to do with the local pc.

  49. will said on October 28, 2009 at 5:06 am
    Reply

    it may be that your download folder location is giving you the issue

  50. Yatti420 said on October 28, 2009 at 2:20 am
    Reply

    I’ve never had compatibility problems with µTorrent..

  51. Paul said on October 28, 2009 at 12:51 am
    Reply

    Do you have the preview function on in the Windows Explorer? I find this gives me access issues with Office 2007 documents. Maybe there is something similar that Win7 is doing here.

  52. murray said on October 28, 2009 at 12:17 am
    Reply

    Add another one – to having no problems with uTorrent and Win7 at all – and have run the beta to RTM versions – all worked fine.

  53. NetFlexx said on October 27, 2009 at 9:57 pm
    Reply

    +1 for having no trouble at all. No problems with uTorrent and 7 since the early betas up to my fresh installed 7 Home Premium – never had to adjust compatibility before. I’m currently running 1.8.5 (build 16977).

  54. zeus911 said on October 27, 2009 at 7:26 pm
    Reply

    I’ve been running W7 since Beta and have had no problems at all with utorrent.

  55. xxdesmus said on October 27, 2009 at 7:23 pm
    Reply

    That’s definitely very strange. I have not had a single problem with uTorrent on Windows 7 in at least 10 months. Maybe it’s your install of Windows 7 and not actually a problem with uTorrent.

  56. Geico said on October 27, 2009 at 6:43 pm
    Reply

    maybe it just u, because I’ve got it running normally.

  57. Gecko Bloggle said on October 27, 2009 at 6:03 pm
    Reply

    I’m not having access denied issues with uTorrent (fairly recent version, but maybe not “latest & greatest”) under Win7, but I *am* having troubles running the Wubi installer for Ubuntu Netbook Remix 9.10, and by trouble I mean that I get “access denied” errors when I try to install from the ISO, and it simply fails when it downloads the latest edition (which takes quite a while, lemme just say).

    Of course, I’m still running my Win7 RTM that I downloaded from MSDN, and Ubuntu 9.10 isn’t out yet AND I’m doing both on a netbook, so I’m sorta pushing the limits of what *should* be simple. :)

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