What are the risks of Taking Ownership of System32?

Hi guys, I am new around here, but I was hoping you could lend me a hand.

I think I've been stupid.
While trying to fix an issue with a simulator (FSX) that involved adding a .dll file to system 32, a user said in a guide to fix said issue to paste the .dll file into system 32, but to do this, you would need to take ownership of the system 32 folder. Which I did, and the .dll was pasted successfully. However stupidly I didn't do any research until after the CMD/DOS window did the whole ownership process. Then I read in this forum that I should NOT take ownership of system32.

I don't know if I screwed up, and if there is any way to revert it? I mean.. nothing happened, and my system is running fine. Multiple people who also use FSX have done the ownership of system32, and none have reported problems, so.. I'm just a little scared as to what I have possibly done.

I personally wouldn't rate it as good or bad specifically.
It's a tad more situational in my eyes.
However, I would suggest you make sure you do have a active antivirus and firewall active meantime.
The problem with taking ownership of that folder is it gives malware, viruses, and script kiddies even, a slightly easier way into the system root should they gain access somehow.

Maguscreed said:

I personally wouldn't rate it as good or bad specifically.
It's a tad more situational in my eyes.
However, I would suggest you make sure you do have a active antivirus and firewall active meantime.
The problem with taking ownership of that folder is it gives malware, viruses, and script kiddies even, a slightly easier way into the system root should they gain access somehow.

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Thank you a lot. Well, it did solve the problem I was having with the simulator.
But now that you mention that it could give all that sort of programs a chance to gain access to it.. I would also like to know if I can revert it without affecting the .dll I put into it..?

To be honest I don't have specific experience with that scenario which is why I didn't suggest it.
In the meantime you really should be okay, all you really did was put the directory back into a windows xp security state. It is less secure but it's not really dangerously so.

Maguscreed said:

To be honest I don't have specific experience with that scenario which is why I didn't suggest it.
In the meantime you really should be okay, all you really did was put the directory back into a windows xp security state. It is less secure but it's not really dangerously so.

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Thank you very much for your replies, I feel much better now.
Replies I had read made it seem like I made a terrible mistake that was bound to destroy my operating system.

Erick Aguilar said:

Maguscreed said:

To be honest I don't have specific experience with that scenario which is why I didn't suggest it.
In the meantime you really should be okay, all you really did was put the directory back into a windows xp security state. It is less secure but it's not really dangerously so.

Click to expand...

Thank you very much for your replies, I feel much better now.
Replies I had read made it seem like I made a terrible mistake that was bound to destroy my operating system.

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Hi Erick, I have been chastised many times for telling posters to "take ownership" of a file which I personnally think needs to be done in certain circumstances but I would never ever tell anyone to take contol of important system files (orfolders) it's just a bit too risky for my liking

This doesn't seem like a user that's in the habit of messing with those files himself. So I'm a tad less worried on that front.

Windows has a way of healing certain things - known folders and such. Often a boot will fix ownership issues on certain system files / directories.

Maguscreed said:

This doesn't seem like a user that's in the habit of messing with those files himself. So I'm a tad less worried on that front.

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Exactly. I'm inclined to mess with hardware, and performance subjects a lot more than with the operating system itself. And while I do have a mak key and could reinstall windows over, and over, I don't have an external HDD to run a backup at the moment, so I can't afford to have my computers OS get messy right now.