Take Ownership of Your Files and Folders
Windows Explorer/Locate the file or folder in question/Right Click/Properties/Security/Advanced/Owner Tab. In the change owner box, click new owner.
[To Display the Security Tab: Start/Settings/Control Panel/Appearance & Themes/Folder Options. View/Advanced
and clear "Use Simple File Sharing".]
You can transfer ownership in two ways:
The current owner can grant the Take ownership permission to others, allowing those users to take ownership at any
time.
An administrator can take ownership of any file on the computer. However, the administrator cannot transfer ownership
to others. This restriction keeps the administrator accountable.
Note: In Windows XP Professional, the Everyone group no longer includes the Anonymous Logon group.
Permission Denied When Trying to Delete Folders/Files
Windows Explorer/Tools/Folder Options/View/Unmark "Use Simple File Sharing". Right click the folder/file in question/Properties/Security/Advanced/Owner/Set Permissions.
Folder Permissions
To set, view, change, or remove file and folder permissions:
1. Click Start, click My Computer, and then locate the file or folder for which you want to set permissions.
2. Right-click the file or folder, click Properties, and then click the Security tab.
3. Use one of the following steps:
- To set permissions for a group or user that does not appear in the "Group or user names" box, click Add, type the name of
the group or user for whom you want to set permissions, and then click OK.
- To change or remove permissions from an existing group or user, click the name of the group or user.
4. Use one of the following steps:
- To allow or deny a permission, click to select either the Allow or Deny check box in the "Permissions for <User or
Group>" box, where <User or Group> is the name of the user or group.
- To remove the group or user from the "Group or user names" box, click Remove.
Important: If you are not joined to a domain and want to view the Security tab:
1. Click Start, and then click Control Panel.
2. Click "Appearance and Themes", and then click Folder Options.
3. Click the View tab, and then click to clear the "Use simple file sharing [Recommended]" check box in the "Advanced
settings" box.
Notes:
- The Everyone group does not include the Anonymous Logon permission.
- You can set permissions only on drives formatted to use the NTFS file system.
- To change permissions, you must be the owner or have permissions to change permissions by the owner.
- Groups or users that are granted Full Control for a folder can delete files and subfolders in that folder, regardless of the
permissions that protect the files and subfolders.
- If the check boxes in the "Permissions for <user or group>" box are shaded or if the Remove button is unavailable, then
the file or folder has inherited permissions from the parent folder. For more information about how inheritance affects files
and folders, see Windows Help.
- When you add a new user or group, by default, the user or group has Read & Execute, List Folder Contents, and Read
permissions.
How Inheritance Affects File and Folder Permissions
After you set permissions on a parent folder, new files and subfolders that are created in the folder inherit these permissions. If you do not want the files and folders to inherit permissions, click "This folder only" in the "Apply onto" box when you set up special permissions for the parent folder.
If you want to prevent only certain files or subfolders from inheriting permissions,
right-click the file or subfolder, click Properties, click the Security tab, click Advanced, and then click to clear the "Inherit from parent the permission entries that apply to child objects. Include these with entries explicitly defined here" check box.
If the check boxes are not available, the file or folder has inherited permissions from the parent folder. There are three ways to make changes to inherited permissions:
- Make the changes to the parent folder so that the file or folder inherits the permissions.
- Click to select the opposite permission (Allow or Deny) to override the inherited permission.
- Click to clear the "Inherit from parent the permission entries that apply to child objects. Include these with entries explicitly
defined here" check box. When you do this, you can make changes to the permissions or remove the user or group from
the permissions list. However, the file or folder does not inherit permissions from the parent folder.
In most cases, Deny overrides Allow unless a folder inherits conflicting settings from different parents. When this occurs, the setting that is inherited from the parent that is closest to the object in the subtree has precedence.
When you use the Deny and Allow settings, note that:
- Allow permissions are cumulative, so a user's permissions are determined by the cumulative effect of all of the groups to
which the user belongs.
- Deny permissions override Allow permissions. Use caution when you apply Deny permissions.
Inheritable permissions are only inherited by child objects. When you set permissions on the parent object, you can decide whether folders or subfolders can inherit them with the "Apply onto" setting.
You can determine which permissions a user or group has on an object if you view the effective permissions.
To View Effective Permissions on Files and Folders
To view effective permissions on files and folders:
1. Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Accessories, and then click Windows Explorer.
2. Locate the file or folder for which you want to view effective permissions.
3. Right-click the file or folder, click Properties, and then click the Security tab.
4. Click Advanced, and then click the Effective Permissions tab.
5. Click Select.
6. In the Name box, type the name of a user or group, and then click OK. The check boxes that are selected indicate the
effective permissions of the user or group for that file or folder.
Notes:
- The calculation does not use the following Security Identifiers settings:
Anonymous Logon, Authenticated Users, Batch, Creator Group, Creator Owner, Dialup, Enterprise Domain Controllers, Everyone, Network, Proxy, Restricted, Self, Service, System, and Terminal Server User. An example of these settings
is if a user tries to remotely access a file.
- The Effective Permissions tab displays information that is calculated from the existing permissions entries. Therefore, the
information that is displayed on that page is read-only and does not support changing a user's permissions if you select or
clear permission check boxes.
