When you try to start iTunes for Windows, you get an error message that says:
The iTunes Library.itl file is locked, on a locked disk, or you do not have write permission for this file.
This happens because, somehow the iTunes Library.itl file got set as read only. You can fix this by doing the following steps:
1. Open the My Documents folder.
2. Open the My Music folder.
3. Open the iTunes folder
4. Right-click the iTunes Library.itl file and select Properties.
5. Uncheck Read-only.
6. If you have a Security tab, select it. Ensure that your account has Full Control permissions to the file. If you don’t have this tab, ignore this step.
7. Click OK.
Now you should be able to start iTunes without the error. If not, your music files may actually be set to where you don’t have proper permissions. Check it with these steps.
1. Navigate to the location where the music files are located. For Windows 7 users, it’s normally in the C:\Users\username\Music\iTunes\iTunes Media folder.
2. Right-click the iTunes Media folder, then select Properties.
3. Ensure that the Hidden and Archive boxes aren’t checked. If you have a permissions tab, check to see that you have it set to “Full Control” and that nothing is set to “Deny”.
Last modified April 11, 2012
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Thank you so much!!!!
I ran into this same problem. All of the “read only” attempts did not work for me. I did however get it to finally work by right clicking on the itunes icon, going to preferences, choosing the shortcut icon, clicking on advanced and checking the “run as administrator” box. Has worked ever since.
1. Open the My Documents folder.
2. Open the My Music folder.
3. remove all file of itune
4. start itune it will work fine
5. new file automatically created
followed all of these steps, and still unlucky. =(
I followed the instructions to unclick the read-only box on the iTunes folder. It appears to be changing a lot of files. However, if I close it and come right back in, the read-only box still still checked. As far as I can see, everything is “Full Control”.
I’m using WIndows 8. I’ve had it for a week or so and up until yesterday everything was working fine. Nothing that I know of changed, but all of a sudden I have this problem.
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