Take Ownership question

logicearth said:

Droid said:

I am looking for a way to remove the ownership feature completely so I never have to take ownership of anything from any drive before I access it. I do computer repair and often have to recover data from someone's drive but before I can copy anything I have to take ownership which can be slow with a 500GB or 1TB drive.

Return to the stone age and use FAT as the file system. It has zero security which is what you want, correct?

Actually I use Linux quite a bit for it instead. I just wish there was an easier way in Windows.

WindowsStar said:

Droid said:

Thanks for all the replies. I know about the ways to take ownership of a file or folder via the command line and the registry hack that adds the context menu.

I am looking for a way to remove the ownership feature completely so I never have to take ownership of anything from any drive before I access it. I do computer repair and often have to recover data from someone's drive but before I can copy anything I have to take ownership which can be slow with a 500GB or 1TB drive.

I do data recovery all the time and have never had to take ownership. Why would you have to do that? What causes this to happen for you?

If I knew what caused it I wouldn't have a problem LOL! I have UAC turned off though. It's not all the time but sometimes when I connect someone else's HD to my system and try to open that users folder in Users or Documents and Settings (Depending on the version of Windows) it will say I don't have rights to access it. If I take ownership it works but can take a while when the folder contains more than a few GB.

Mombodog said:

Is there some way to just avoid having to take ownership in the first place?

No, that is a windows 7 security feature, no way to disable it.

Isn't that a 'feature' of NTFS?

With a conversion program he might be able to convert the drives to FAT32 and be rid of the stuff.

Mombodog said:

Or move back to XP ; -)

That might actually be a useful tip. He could have a bootable USB with Windows XP to copy things. Or a bootable linux to get around these annoyances.

Hi


Found this, hope it provides some clarification - full thread can be found here :)

Ok I think I got a handle on this problem. The issue arises out of a series of events coming together.
1) The files in question were probably created under XP when the default account was Administrator.
2) The files in question are probably on something like an external hard drive or any other media that was not available when Win 7 was being installed.
3) The user name used when creating the admin account for Win 7 is likely not Administrator. As the files are not available during the install of Win 7 the files are presented at a later date to the new OS with their old XP permissions intact under the user name Administrator.
4) When Win 7 sees these new files it reacts to the fact that the user name it is using does not match the user name inherent in the files and folders in question. Win 7 then assigns the files to an unknown user status and demands the user change the permissions to reflect the User account being used.
Here is where it gets tricky. One would expect that by assigning permissions to the Parent Folder that all Folders under it will follow suit. The fact that this does not occur would appear to be a bug. However it is not. People forget just how Windows handles permissions when it comes to Folders AND Files together. Here is what I have found. If my parent directory has any files in it as well as folders it will not change the permissions on the files and the folders at the same time. This holds true for any sub directories in the tree that contain files and folders. So if you have Folder One then Folder Two plus files then Folder Three etc then permissions will not be reflected all the way down the tree. So when you change permissions at the Parent level and then try and copy the whole lot over Win 7 will hit a file or a Folder under a Parent Folder with those files that still have the old permissions. Win 7 will then halt the process seeking the permissions to be changed. If ALL the files in question are ALL in one Parent or a Sub Directory then the permissions should change using the advanced option under the security tab. However this process seems to fail if any directories in the tree have more sub folders under them and have files in them at the same time. To free the files and move them from the Tree it appears that the Files must have their permissions altered in their own right. However this might be avoided if all directories that share the folder with those files are removed from the tree. However if you have multiple folders with multiple files throughout your tree you have your work cut out for you.
As this is actually normal behaviour for Windows and how it deals with file permissions then it is not a "bug" so there is nothing for Microsoft to fix. I hope this helps. In the days of XP just about everyone used the user name Administrator so this is why this problem has not really surfaced before.

I figured it out!! I was having the same problem but finally figured out a solution.


Right click on the folder > Properties > Security > Advanced


On the Permissions tab, click Change Permissions. The following window will list all permission entries. Check BOTH boxes below, one says, "Include inheritable permissions from this object's parent" and the other says, "Replace all child object permissions with inheritable permissions from this object." Click APPLY. A security message will come up about permissions, click YES. Then, uncheck the box (only the top box should be checked after you click apply) and you will be prompted with a security message. Click REMOVE.


Now, with all folders I've done this with except one, all permissions were removed except "Users". This is exactly what you want. The exception was one folder deleted ALL permissions which would not allow anyone to edit the file which you obviously don't want. For this file, I manually removed all permissions via the remove button except "users" and this worked as well.


Hope you get as much joy out of beating the system as I did!

Hi all,
I was able to move/copy a subdirectory "2009" from folder "pictures" to folder "pictures1". Now I can view the pictures in this subfolder "2009". The above quote did not work for me. I could do the trick with UAC set to zero, but after putting UAC back to medium the same problem reappeared: I am the owner of the folder but I cannot access the files/pictures in it. Funny isn't it?

Had the same problem. A number of folders from an old XP system were unavailable. So I copued them on to an external HDD and then copied them back. Voila, I'm now the owner. Crude, but it worked

Yes, I'm having the same problem now with Windows 10 when trying to access files produced with my former Win 8.1 o.s.
"Take Ownership" often helps but not Always. And then it seems that some moving back and forth is doing the trick.