Check whether the application has read access to a folder (FindFirstFile returns "Access denied" but _access succeeds)

Question

I'm enumerating contents of a folder with FindFirstFile/FindNextFile. The problem I'm facing is that some of the sub-folders found cannot be enumerated in turn, FindFirstFile returns "Access is denied." So I want to check for this condition and not include such-subfolders into the list in the first place. I've found two possible solutions: check the path with _access(), or check the actual permissions in detail with AccessCheck, but the latter is said to be heavy-weight, unlike _access(), because you need to open and close a handle. Problem is, _access always succeeds for all the folders that I can't enumerate with FindFirstFile. Is there any other solution besides AccessCheck?

Another head-on approach would be to call FindFirstFile right away, but that, again, seems a waste (and I would also first need to determine whether the item is a folder, so even more extra work).

Answer 1

The comments on my question are helpful and provide the easiest solution to the problem as formulated, but during further research I've found that the folders I cannot enumerate are links, they have the attribute bit FILE_ATTRIBUTE_REPARSE_POINT set in their WIN32_FIND_DATA::dwAttributes field. Checking for that was enough for me to implement special handling for these items.