Re: XP Folder Ownership Problems, Permissions, Inheritances

From: Kent W. England [MVP] (kwe@mvps.org)
Date: 06/08/02 

From: "Kent W. England [MVP]" <kwe@mvps.org>
Date: Sat, 8 Jun 2002 09:33:08 -0700

One of the reasons that messing with permissions is dangerous is that
you can't precisely undo what you did when you made a mistake. You
cannot go back to your defaults without a reinstall, but you don't have
to for most cases, if all you did was change ownership and not
permissions. If you changed permissions, then all bets are off and you
have to fix things one by one. The good news is that when you are done,
you'll understand permissions much better than before.

As to this Word problem, you'll have to be more specific about the
folder in question. Is it in the Program Files or the user profile? Give
me a cacls output on the folder. 

--
Kent W. England, MS MVP for Windows XP
(Please respond only in the newsgroup)
Kent Peters <Kent-Peters@houston.rr.com> posted the following:
> OK, I can change the ownership of all my root folders to
> "Administrators". But, how do I either reset all permissions and
> inheritances to their original default settings (and what are the
> default settings) OR strip all my folders and files of their security
> settings? I've read several MS Support articles on this stuff but
> they all dance around fine points. I don't understand the big
> picture. XP has "Ownership", " Permissions", "Inheritances", Users
> can have certain levels of security clearance AND folders & files can
> certain security levels. I don't understand how they all work
> together or how to reset everything to their default settings. What
> overrides what? What is the structure that defines precedence when
> both file level and user level security are set? Can you recommend
> something I could read on this? The Qxxxxxx articles never present
> the big picture.
>
> For what every reason, this is the problem I am having now. If I make
> the owner Administrators, MS Word won't work when I log in as Kent.
> If I make the owner KENT, MSWord won't work when I log in at
> Administrator. It's veryyyyyy frustrating. I reset permissions,
> inheritances, and owners until I am blue in the face, but the problem
> persists. What can I do ?
>
> "Kent W. England [MVP]" <kwe@mvps.org> wrote in message
> news:OSPga9cDCHA.2232@tkmsftngp04...
>> My original advice to the original poster was aimed at gaining
>> access to an orphaned folder. I have no idea why you are changing
>> your system folder permissions. Those aren't orphaned because they
>> are owned by a well-known SID, the Administrators group.
>>
>> All of your root folders should be owned by Administrators. This is
>> good because it prevents the orphaned folder problem in the first
>> place. Change the ownership back to Administrators group. It's OK
>> for your user profile folders to be owned by Administrators. As long
>> as you didn't change any of the permissions, it doesn't matter who
>> the owner is.

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