How to: Taking ownership of files; A guide for windows XP users.

It seems at least once a week I come across someone on these forums who need assistance recovering files that they do not have proper permissions to. This can happen when permissions have become corrupted or when you attempt to transfer protected files (for example, recovering your My Documents folder by attaching the HDD of a non booting Windows installation to another working computer as an external) So here's a quick guide on how to do it. This guide is for Windows XP though the process for Windows Vista is almost identical.

Step one: Boot into safemode.




Step two: Log in as administrator. When prompted if you'd like to continue in safe mode, click yes.




Step three: Navigate to C:\Documents and Settings



Step four: Right click the folder with the username of the files you are attempting to recover. Click properties.



Step five: Click the security tab, then click advanced.



Step six: Click the owner tab. Select "Administrators." This will give all local accounts with administrative access permission to this folder. Check off the "replace owner on subcontainers and objects" box. This will recurse the permissions to everything inside the folder. Hit apply and let it do it's thing, it could take several minutes, depending on how many files you have. Sadly, I have no progress screenshot as I was logged into a virtual machine used for testing that has no documents.




Step seven: Reboot into normal mode, log into your account, enjoy your files! End!



Hope this is found as helpful to someone!
-Hep!

 

There's also that "Take Ownership" thing if you want to do that much faster.

 

This is how I've been taking ownership of files for years. Please advise me of the faster way?

 

Nvm, I believe it's Vista only.
http://www.winmatrix.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=13145

I thought I've seen one for XP though. I'll try n look.

 

Ah yeah, the registry tweak that adds it to context menus. Vista only AFAIK, which is why it says "A guide for windows XP users" Excellent link nonetheless.

 

Why do you need safe mode for this? It should let you change file permissions without safe mode. (I don't have a copy of XP handy, so I can't verify, but it doesn't seem necessary.)

Also, once you've given permissions to all administrators, why bother chaning the owner? It seems redundant. The permissions should be enough I would think.

 

You have to run in safe mode in order to do it. I've tried it when I was trying to disable the popup for Avira on my XP desktop.

 

You don't need safe mode in XP Pro (I have heard, I always use safe mode), but for XP Home Edition you MUST use safe mode. Also no, I did not check off those permissions, those were defaults. You can give yourself permission to individual files (IE, if the account VMware had a password, I would not be able to even open the VMware account folder. If I gave myself permission, I would be able to open it, but not files inside. Then I would have to give myself permission to each individual file). This cuts out all that time because it recurses permissions.

 

Great guide, now i can just link this to people

 

Appreciated That's why I wrote it, I found myself typing up something not as good like once a week.

 

Good guide!...Didn't see the need for Safe Mode either as Swarmer pointed out, but good guide nevertheless.

 

There were actually taking ownership instructions in the first part of the slimming vista guide in my sig. lol

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=3623855#post3623855

 

His guide is for XP.

 

yup i know but: